The Mechanic Diaries
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: A prequel describing Kaylee's experiences on Serenity before the series began, including her perspective on Mal getting shot by Patience, Inara and Jayne coming aboard, and Zoe/Wash's wedding.
1. Chapter 1

Week One

The sun was starting to set against the dusty plain as I headed over towards the ship, and I could only see its squat, friendly proportions by shading my hand against the light, which was awkward with all that I was carrying, but I *wanted* to see it. This firefly transport was going to be my home, for... well, I didn't rightly know how long I'd be staying with her and her odd crew, but I could hardly wait to get started. Between the carrying and the hand-shading, I completely missed Bester as he came up from aside me, shaking me by my shoulders so that the biggest suitcase fell on the dry packed ground. He even raised his hand and threatened my face, but seemed to realize that he'd be hitting a girl and thought better of before letting the slap land at least.

"You truly ARE a prairie harpy," he muttered. "Why'd you have to go and spout off about the grav boot for? I... I knew that it wasn't that, but I had to tell old man Reynolds SOMETHING..."

For a second I was really worried, then spotted somebody watching from the open cargo bay of the ship and heading over. Whoever it was, wouldn't let Bester hurt me, I was somehow sure of that, and I used the safety of that to give him a piece of my mind. "I didn't tell your Captain... my Captain now I guess, nothin' but the truth. Ain't my fault if you don't know a bad reg couple from your own big toe! I won't apologize neither for showin' you up, not if it got me this opportunity. If you took care of that there Firefly right, and nothin' would have happened to your job. But you didn't, an' she was cryin' out for someone who would put her to rights. I'm just the one that heard her, is all."

"Very poetic," Bester sneered. "But what am I to do now? Reynolds threw me off, nothing but the clothes on my back and half a week's pay he owed me. How am I gonna find more work on a fleapit moon like this one?"

I smiled very slightly, and didn't step in to defend my home world, because there was some truth to the line that there was little work to be had, especially for lazy strangers. "I dunno, but the nearest town is over that away. Don't let the airlock close on your big butt as you go." Not the best wiseass I've ever come up with, I know, since he was well out of any airlock, but it was the best I could come up with.

"And I'm glad you won't be able to come crying to me when that miser won't let you have the right parts and tools you need to keep proper care of your baby firefly," was Bester's parting line as he tromped off, which probably cut a good deal closer to the bone than anything I'd said to him. I understood about good working equipment being scarce, it was that way when I'd worked in my Daddy's garage, but... something about the thought of this magnificent machine not having the right supplies to see her fixed up nice just gave me a pang, and I wondered if it was something I'd be feeling over and over again during my time with her. Oh well. I picked up the box and headed over towards the cargo bay ramp. The man who had been heading over had turned around and wandered back when he saw Bester leaving, and I fell into step next to him. It was a man, and not Captain Reynolds, who had offered me the job. He had pale yellow hair that stuck up a bit here and there, a full and neatly trimmed blond moustache above his lip, and a friendly, happy-go-lucky face.

"Hello there - you'd be the pilot, right?"

"Yeah. Everyone calls me Wash. And your name is Kaylee, right? Can I help you with some of that?"

"Um, sure, thanks." After a moment, I passed the big box over to him just because it was the easiest thing to off-load first. "Actually, Kaywinnit Lee Frye, but nobody uses my full name either." I thought about that. "What's your full name?"

"Nah-eh," he said, shaking his head. "I don't even tell it to just anybody, and though you seem nice, you haven't earned it yet." That made me blink in surprise for a bit. "Ever worked on a Firefly transport before?"

"No, but I expect I've got practice on everything that goes into making one, just not put together this way before."

"Okay. I wish you good luck - we can probably use some." By this point we were walking up the wide ramp together, and 'Wash' checked the controls after he put my stuff down inside. "Captain wants us to lift off as soon as may be - do you want to make a final inspect of the engines before I go?"

"Huh?" That took me by surprise. I'd hardly had a chance to take out that reg couple before heading off to tell my parents that I'd been offered a job, and -- well, I'd gotten a good look at the engine room when Bester had taken me in there for our 'date', (which hadn't ended so well for him,) but I now remembered a few things that could also bear checking on in closer detail, and much better while we were sitting on the ground than up in the air - or in the black of space, as far as that went. Suddenly the enormity of what I'd agreed to hit me - I wasn't a complete homebody, and had toured my moon some over the years, being to the one small city and the boonies that few people visited, but I'd never actually made it into space, not even for a group tour in orbit. It was strange to think that I'd signed onto a transport ship heading who-knew-where in the great wide 'Verse! (And coming back here who-knew-when.)

But - but I *did* want this, no matter how much it was to bite off at once, and there was hard work that obviously came along with it. Captain wanted to be gone from here yesterday, that much had been obvious from his fighting with Bester and the quick way that he'd signed me up. So I had to go do what needed doing as quickly as might be, and worry about settling into my new home later.

"Yeah, I'll do a quick tune-up and let you know when she's ready." Something that Bester had said about being tossed off with only his clothes and a bit of back pay made me think a moment. "Are Bester's tools still here?"

"Yeah, I believe so... well, Captain paid for most of them, so he insisted on keeping them. In the engine room for the most part - I can go down into his bunk and see if there's anything useful there."

"Thanks, it'd save some time," I told Wash with a smile, putting my bags down - except for one that I'd need to get to work, and I rummaged through the big tote for a few other supplies that would be useful in tending to..."What's her name, anyway? I don't think that was ever mentioned."

"Who, the first mate?"

"No." I knew Zoe's name - she'd ended up coming over to my Dad's place to help explain the offer - I'd felt that he'd be more agreeable if it didn't seem like a fella was whisking me away to the stars. "The SHIP. She's beautiful, but I need to know what to call her if I'm going to work with her."

"Oh, the ship," Wash repeated with a small smile. "Mal named her 'Serenity.' Didn't think much of that at first, but I think that it's starting to grow on me."

"Serenity," I repeated, tasting the syllables as they came off my tongue, thinking of the feeling that the word as a whole brought inside me. "It's a perfect name. Give me just an hour, and I'll have your heart doing its thing better than fine, Serenity."

-------------

"Not bad," Zoe said as the engine rotor picked up speed and the whole room vibrated in tune with the unseen exhaust ports. I jumped just a bit, because I hadn't seen her standing there outside the open doorway. "You definitely know your way around a trace compression block. I was a bit suspicious of Bester from the start, but the Captain, well..."

"I'm just glad I could help, I guess," I said, feeling a little nervous around the formidable first mate. I'd only just given Wash the okay to take off about a minute past, and we were probably... what? Four miles up already, I'd guess. "I thought about staying in here for a while to make sure that everything's in good shape, but... it almost seems silly to now. If something wasn't right, she'd have let me know by now."

"She?" Zoe shot me a what-the-gorram look, but she caught it quicker than Wash had. "Oh, the engine? The whole ship??" I nodded. "Fair enough. I brought your stuff up to the dining hall, close to the crew's bunks. I guess you'd want to settle in now?"

"Sure, I guess," I said, getting up, but something caught my attention, and I turned around before leaving, deep in thought.

"What is it?" Zoe asked.

"Umm, nothing important, I guess, but... do you think that there's a spare hammock on board or something? Might be good to rig one up right there..." I pointed to a spot between two support beams on the starboard side of the room, (as it were, since there's stars in all directions in space I guess,) near the exit to forward. "So I could grab a little rest without - without being too far from the engine itself."

Zoe was surprised, I could tell, but also impressed by that suggestion after a moment. Maybe she took it as dedication to the job, but - well, I hadn't meant it that way. Maybe it showed that I was dedicated in a way that went beyond choices or decisions, I ain't sure of anything like that. I just wanted to do the best I could by Serenity any way that I could. Hadn't been but a few hours since I'd first laid eyes on her, but I was in love with this ship, and couldn't hardly believe that I was moving in so quickly. "Yeah, I think that there are a few old military hammocks tucked away somewhere. Take up just about no space when they're not being used, after all. I'll see what I can do."

"Okay." I let Zoe lead me forward, through the dining room and past the stairs down the engine room that I'd come up. All of my things were piled there, and I took two of the bags.

"I've carried what I could out of Bester's bunk, and piled the rest up in the corner," Zoe said grimly. "Figured that you'd want to take it over - there's a fifth bunk spare, but it isn't much. Anything that you don't want can get taken up to dump or sell off if we can find someone to buy it. Here we go."

She was opening one hatchway to reveal a sort of a trap door down into a room beneath the forward hall, but I couldn't pay any more attention to that. "Just, just a..." From where we were, I could catch just a glimpse outside through the cockpit windows, and it was a sight that I couldn't resist the urge to see more of. Wash was at the controls, not that that was such a pretty sight, but in front of Serenity and below her... the sun was rising over my home moon of Three Hills. *RISING* - even though we were facing west, and it had only just set - because the ship was flying so fast above the surface that we were catching up with the sunlight again. My heart went out with the beauty and magic of it. The dim ground was probably sixty or seventy miles down, and the stars above and around were starting to fade out slightly, overwhelmed by the returning light of the sun. "Sorry, I just had to see this."

"First time off your world?" Zoe asked softly.

"First time up into orbit around it, even," I said.

"I should have thought to invite you up here for this," Wash said cheerfully. "First takeoff is something that a person should remember more of."

"No, there'll be plenty more like this," I swore. "Lots to do tonight, getting moved in and such."

"I can carry your stuff down to your new bunk," Zoe insisted. "At least stay and watch that long."

"Okay, I guess." I sat down in the other seat in the cockpit, the co-pilot's chair or whatever, though I definitely made sure not to touch the controls there. "What about the Captain, is he about?"

"Yeah, I expect he'll be poking his head in here soon, just to make sure everything's okay," Wash said. "Was on the Cortex a few minutes ago, I believe, telling our clients that we were fit to be moving again and they'd have their cargo soon."

"Oh, right." I hadn't really thought about that, that a ship like Serenity wasn't just a pleasure craft to be zipping about the 'Verse in, (or chugging about?) but a ship that could and usually would haul tonnage. "What *is* the cargo?"

"Cargo?" For a second, Wash seemed surprised that I was asking about it. "Umm, fertilizer and herbicides mostly, I think. Hauling them out to a colony on Whitefall."

"Fertilizer?" I repeated. "For farmland? Why can't they just make it there?"

"Couple reasons. Every world is different, and I think that Whitefall doesn't have much of the stuff that they need to get their crops to grow right." Wash sighed. "And from the way Zoe tells it, the Alliance has their own ideas about how people should be running farms, which don't actually work so well either, so that's why they're paying top price for us to smuggle in what they need."

"We're smugglers?" I asked, shocked.

"Frequently, when we're not being even more disreputable low-lifes." Wash laughed heartily, and then he must've caught the look on my face. "Oh, I guess that Mal didn't mention anything about underhanded business when he asked you on?"

"No, though I suppose it would've been smart to ask. Didn't realize I'd be casting my lot in with criminals..."

"Listen, don't let what Mal and Zoe do to get the bills paid make up your mind about them. They're both good folk, among the best I've ever met - just have a few differences of opinion with the government about how things should best be done. The alliance is often wrong about such things, and criminal definitely isn't the same thing as 'evil' in a 'verse like this one."

"Yeah, I suppose so," I said. Come to think on it, even my Daddy wasn't too worried about being on the right side of the law as being a man who the neighbors trusted and respected. Things weren't so different here.

It was then that Mal, (I soon stopped thinking of him as anything formal, just 'Mal', or 'Cap'n',) popped his head in and asked a few questions, quizzing Wash on the time it'd take to get to Whitefall and any Alliance patrols we might have to sneak past, and sounding reassured by what I'd told him about the engine. We were up high above Three Hills by now, beyond the sky I guess, in that there wasn't any blue around even though we could see the sun - I knew it was air bouncing the blue of sunlight every which way that gave the sky its color, so guessed that we were above all the air. I said goodnight to Wash and to Mal, and headed down the trap door that Zoe had shown me. All of my stuff was down inside the cozy bunkroom, along with the pile of Bester's things that she had mentioned, and a few furnishings like a comfy mattress and a simple cortex screen. No Zoe - she must have finished already.

I felt tired, but couldn't quite turn in to go to sleep - so much had happened. Straightened out my stuff a bit - would need to find a proper trunk or dresser that would fit in here to keep my things in. Set up this diary in the cortex source panel. In fact, now that I've told it all, I'm starting to get a lot driftier. Probably gonna close the file soon.

My first day on Serenity, or part of a day. I think I'm gonna like it here, but I'm not sure what life here is going to be like aside from that. I've stepped away from everything I knew at home, and don't think I realized what it meant, stuck in a ship with just three other crew. They're all okay in their different ways, but - well, older than me, for one thing. Zoe's sort of too strong and silent to be much of a girlfriend, and the men - both really cute, but not sure if I'd really want to try charming either, or if they'd have me if I did. Still remember the thrill that went through me when I saw Bester in the pub this morning... but he's back on Three Hills, and I'm out here. I wonder if there'll be any cute guys on Whitefall, wherever we have to deliver this stuff.

'Til next time.

--------------

Okay, this is the only time I'm actually going to say it. Dear diary, what an exciting day I've had!

It might not seem like that much, really, since we've been in space, but... well, people have been showing me around 'Serenity' mostly, and it's all just fascinating stuff. Like those parts in a romantic comedy 'vid where the boy and the girl have met up, and been through the first few obstacles and get a chance to really enjoy some time together, and they talk all night about what their lives have been like and what they think about all of the smallest things. (Do you suppose it's weird that I keep thinking of stuff like that, when it comes to HER?)

Let's see. On the bottom level there's the passenger quarters, which have been empty for a while now, because when you're doing smuggling you don't want to have nosey-bodies around who might report you. Empty of people, I mean - Zoe's been using 'em as storerooms and such. That was where she found my hammock for the engine room. It'd be nice to have a few passengers around, I think, but it's okay that we're going just us for a little while I guess. Also the infirmary, for getting wounds patched up and so on. Apparently Zoe learned a few medic skills back in the war, which she and Mal were in together, but still there's a lot of stuff that she doesn't use much, like the surgical table. Mal said that we'd probably never be able to afford having a genuine doctor on board, though it might help out in rougher situations. Just outside the infirmary is the common lounge, a nice enough place, but the walls look kinduv bare and white. Might have to see if I can so something about that.

And the cargo bay, of course, is on the lower level too... even with all of the stuff that they're carrying it's not full up, leaving an open space that people could even play games in. Mal challenged Zoe to a game of round ball, and she picked me as her teammate - I helped out all that I could, for the honor of the ladies and so on, but Mal's tall and muscle-ey, with a great sense of aim, and even Wash is pretty agile and energetic. I wondered why she hadn't picked him, but couldn't figure it out.

There's a big catwalk over the cargo bay, that's fun to look down from, even if it feels a little unsteady sometimes, and a crosswalk between the two little shuttle bays. There are two little shuttles, that each mount on one side of the ship, to detach and fly off. According to Zoe, Mal's been talking about renting one of them out to an 'independent professional' like a prospector, who was willing to follow the same overall route as the ship takes, but go off on his own business whenever possible. The few times he's tried making the sales pitch, he usually gets laughed at though. They're good shuttles though, and often get used for traveling to client meetings or to make deliveries, if the cargo is small enough, when it would be dangerous to risk the whole ship. In the extremely dire circumstance of something crippling Serenity's engines, they could be used to go and bring back help, or maybe even, so she says, to evacuate the ship.

Upstairs, we have the engine room, which I've already mentioned, the cockpit, and the bunks... I guess that even though I mentioned the dining room in passing, I have a bit more to say about it now. Sort of feels like an extension of the Rec lounge, even though it's upper deck fore and the Rec lounge is lower deck stern. Usual custom is for the crew to gather for one meal a day, usually dinner, and everyone sort of fixes for themselves if they're hungry aside from dinnertime. It's a homey space and I like it, though again, I think the decor could do with just a bit of cheering up, all those plain yellow or grey spaces on the walls.

There's a lot of stuff that I saw that I'm not going to go over in full detail, the little airlocks for providing exit while we're 'in the black', along with the spacesuits used to protect against nothingness. There was a spare suit that's around my size, but it's not a good fit, and Mal said that he'd get one tailored to me when we had time, because eventually I'd probably have to go fix something outside when we couldn't put down for repairs in time, and it was always better to have a suit that fit you perfectly well. That thought scared me a little bit... I thought that all I'd have to take care of was the engine room, but I guess there's a lot more to being a mechanic than that on a little ship without much crew.

Wash had lunch with me and talked more about all sorts of things, which helped me get over the 'what am I really doing here' sensation. He's an amazing pilot, (second in his flight class, he said, and there's a long story about how someone who wasn't as good as he was got top marks that he'll tell me about another time,) and did a lot of freelance work, letting some big-time operations try to bid him into a more regular gig. Then Mal and Zoe come with this ship, which they'd bought out of a scrap yard apparently, (I could just about believe that, but refuse to let that reflect on how I think of her,) and wooed him away from all of them, even though Zoe always seemed to treat him with an odd kind of distaste. "Okay, why?" I asked. "If you had better offers, why go with this ship? I mean, I'm glad that you're here, but..."

"I didn't say that they were better offers, just bigger outfits," Wash said. "Mal treats me very well, no matter how tight things get for him. Some of those guys back on Beaumonde - there were criminal syndicates, and a robber baron, and Alliance subcontractors, and I'd given up on keeping them all straight. Some of that stuff could have gotten me killed. I figured that there was only so much trouble that Mal and Zoe could ever get me into."

"Alright." And from there, the conversation started to turn to Serenity herself. Even though his perspective, as a pilot, was a bit different, Wash knew all kinds of stuff about the Firefly '03 class, and Serenity in particular, that I longed to have memorized myself. Whatever he could, though, he told me, even repeating it over and over again, and told me about resources on the Cortex and so on that I could visit to look up the stuff that he didn't know himself offhand.

"Right," I said. "Speaking of the Cortex... do you know if we've got class B dynamic signal processors, touch-sensitive film, button controls, and some spare memory chips?"

"Umm... probably most of that - the rest we can pick up somewhere. Why?"

"Oh, just... back home, I did a bit of custom work on my cortex terminal, and - well, I didn't even think about bringing it along. Daddy wouldn't have liked me ripping it out of the wall. So I sort of want to start tweaking all over again."

Wash smiled. "I think that should be possible. We're going to get along great, Kaylee."

"Yeah, I think so too," I admitted.

Zoe told me more about the kind of work that the Serenity tended to get itself into a bit later, as we worked together in the cargo bay on the little mule buggy that would be used to tow the cargo out to the buyers - and probably not all of it at once, either. (I kept noticing that Zoe never wanted to spend much time around Wash unless she had to, and those were usually times when the Captain was there too.) Smuggling was part of the routine, as was more usual cargo hauling, wreck salvage, and 'retrieving lost valuables.' Serenity wasn't up to serious piracy, though I was a bit worried that I'd fallen in with pirates - she didn't have any ship-to-ship guns, though Mal and Zoe had some personal firearms. I asked about outright theft, and though Zoe didn't talk about it much, I got the impression that they considered planetside robbery on a case-by-case basis, depending on how much they might earn from it, and who it was they'd be ripping off.

"It's all on account of losing that war," Zoe muttered under her breath. "Captain had the right idea when he bought this boat, though it took me a while to see it. Alliance thinks that they own the whole verse, and they're getting big enough to poke their noses and their fingers into more and more of it. People like us - we've got to make our own way, our own lives, without anyone telling us from on high what to do. We've got to take what jobs what we can, do whatever presents itself as long as we can keep moving. You're like that too, aren't you, Kaylee? I don't think you realized it before you came here, but you're too much a free spirit for a tied-down place like Three Hills."

"Hmm, I dunno, maybe," I said. "What was the war like? Were you and -- and Mal together long?"

"A year and a half, maybe... seems like much longer," Zoe said in a small voice. "He was sergeant and I was a corporal. Fifty-seventh Overlanders. Serenity Valley itself - I felt like I'd been in that goddamn place for two years, but it was only two months or so, according to the calendars."

"You were both in Serenity Valley?" I whispered, awed. I'd heard about that battle - everybody knew about it. And - and the name, Serenity... suddenly I realized that there was a sadder, less peaceful side to it. Maybe that gave her more personality. "What was that like?"

"I'm not going to tell you war stories, girl," Zoe said, climbing up onto the mule to turn it on and rev the engine. Purred beautifully. "At least, not today. Maybe another time."

"Okay, well... thanks," I said. "Any idea what's up after this delivery on Whitefall? Mal told Bester that there was a job waiting on Paquin..."

"Yeah, that's after we're finished with this one," Zoe said. "Believe that there might be some thievery going on when we arrive at Paquin - but you and Wash shouldn't concern yourself with that, it's our business. The port town there is mighty hospitable, and you should be able to get some social time in. I haven't missed how blue you've been to be cooped up with us here. We might even be able to take on passengers there."

"Yeah, that'd be good," I said. "But I think that you're wrong - about it not being our business. As long as we're all together on Serenity... what any of us do is all of our business, I suspect."

"Up to a point," she agreed. "You're probably right. And if there's something we need your help on, I'll ask." And with that, she just turned and left the bay, heading back towards the infirmary. I wondered what she was up to, but didn't go and follow her.

----------

Well before we got to Whitefall, no matter how much I loved Serenity and liked Wash, I was getting the cabin fever. It was just so *odd*, the sensation of my life being lived in the same nine or ten rooms, never being able to go out and walk on the plain. I did what I could to keep busy - tinkering with the engine as much as I could while it was moving, learning more about those parts I couldn't tinker at the time, I did spend some time on the Cortex, and not just learning about Firefly type transports... but after a while I stopped chatting much with my mother or the few friends back home who had sources - it just made me feel more homesick to talk with them and not know when I was going back or be able to explain why I left so suddenly in any terms they could understand beyond the cliche 'I wanted to see the 'Verse.' Well, I'm going to get to see plenty of it I guess, but most of it is dark and full of empty but star-shine.

Food is something that I'm going to have to get used to as well. Know that a lot of time it's hard to get good fresh food, but I hadn't thought of how long a spaceship had to go between supply stops. Zoe bought some good provender from my Dad, partly to make him feel better about letting me go, but all of the best of that is gone already. There's a fair amount of stuff that keeps well dry, and a few supplies kept in a sort of flash freezer that works by venting off into the cold outside, but still.... oh, what I wouldn't give for just a handful of juicy strawberries.

We're to get to Whitefall tomorrow, the seventh day after I came on, more or less. Mal and Zoe have been going over the plans - apparently the buyer, Patience, is this mean ol' bat who runs things tight and crisp, and wasn't happy about the delay they had when Bester couldn't fix Serenity up, but they don't expect much trouble with her. Oh, and I'm just mentioning this because it seems kind of weird: Wash shaved his mustache off entirely today. I asked him why, and he said that he just wondered if it was starting to look kind of silly. I didn't really think so, and was surprised by how much younger he seems without it. Maybe he started growing it in the first place so he'd look more dignified and people would take him serious. Well anyway, that's about all for now. Hope I'll have more to say in the next update.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2

Week Two

I tried to peer out the window set in the main cargo bay doors as we came in for our landing on Whitefall, but it was too high, or I was too short, and I couldn't see much. There was a brief glimpse of some small buildings, plowed fields ready for planting, and scrubby half-desert. Didn't seem all that different from home, come to think on it. Wasn't long before Serenity settled to the ground, first time she'd landed since taking me with her, and Mal nodded at Zoe. "Already, sir?" she asked.

"Patience'll be twitchy, after this long," Mal replied. "If we don't want to get into a siege war, with her people ringin' the ship round, we should just as well get it all out now."

I went over to check the jerry-rigged wagon that half of the cargo was already loaded up onto, and the chain that we'd be using to tow it. Everything looked ship-shape, or maybe planet-shape was more to the point. Zoe headed over to the mule, nodded at me, and climbed on; turning the somewhat tired motor over into reluctant life. Mal was already opening up the doors.

There was lots of loading and unloading to be done quickly, as you might imagine - as soon as Zoe had got the cargo outside we all worked at unloading it off the wagon, piling it near the port thruster exhaust, and then loading up the rest once Zoe had driven back inside. Wash had landed not far from a homey huddled town, and though a few beefy and hard-eyed guys came over quickly to watch, they didn't say anything, seeming happy enough to let us get on with things as long as we were hard at work this way. Neither Mal nor Zoe asked any of them to help.

I do remember one thing I said as we were unloading the first half. "Patience sounds like she doesn't really fit her name." Mal and Zoe stared at me blankly after that, though Zoe kept hefting big fertilizer containers. "You know, patience as in the ability to wait for something? Doesn't sound like she's got that."

Zoe rolled her eyes and Mal chuckled once politely. "I've thought the same thing once or twice myself," he admitted. "But she's been more patient than she might have, considering how late we are already and that there's been no attempts on our lives so far."

"On our LIVES?" I asked.

"This is a rough world, and the harvest is a matter of life and death for everybody. Not saying that makes it right to shoot the couriers, but I can see why the notion would come into somebody's head," Mal said pensively, almost like he was discussing a book he'd read or something,

Soon enough everything was unloaded, and the crowd that had gathered outside was even larger - not hostile or anything, just waiting. "Listen, Wash, I know that you wanted to go into town, but I need you at the controls and on the comm while I talk with Patience," Mal said. All four of us were standing in the now much emptier cargo bay, a hurried conference.

"Why? You're not going to make me fly anywhere, with you and Zoe still outside and surrounded by Patience's town... oh, no. The port burner - you'd tell me to hit full exhaust on all her cargo?"

"Well... probably not," Mal said with just a ghost of a smile. "But I want at least the option of bluffing."

"I know what your idea of bluffing is, remember Mal?" Wash shot back, which confused me a bit. What did he mean? But Wash headed back up towards the cockpit, and Mal and Zoe made a point of checking their weapons before going outside.

"Umm, what about me?" I asked. "Could I go into town?"

"Err, not this time I think, Kaylee," Zoe told me with an annoyingly motherish smile. "You'd have to go alone, and this can be a kinda rough place. Also - well, we just might have to take off quick-like." I opened my mouth to say something automatically, but Mal cut me off.

"Yes, I know that the engines are all primed and ready..." Yeah, that had been exactly it. "But we're not really ready to leave the world if we don't have YOU, now do we?" he asked. I nodded, none too impressed that maybe my only experience of this new world would be unloading a wagon just outside the ship.

Since there was really nothing else to do, I went up and inside the number one shuttle. Looking out the rear window there, I'd have a fine view of the cargo and whatever happened out there, though I wouldn't be able to hear what anybody was saying. Well, not unless I was able to tune the shuttle's comm system into whatever frequency Mal was using to have Wash listen in -- or would he not open that line unless he was giving the order to 'blast it?'

I decided not to bother with the shuttle comm, since things were already happening down below, and nobody was obviously talking into a communicator. An older woman, short with cropped gray hair, had emerged from the crowd of locals, and was talking to Mal and Zoe - not getting too close to them. No matter how out of place she might look as a leader, she had the attitude of someone who was in charge, and I didn't doubt that this was Patience. Zoe's hand stayed near the gun at her belt, but Mal wasn't paying any obvious attention to his own weapons, negotiating with the old woman in earnest over the rectangular barrels and something that I couldn't quite see - Patience had taken it out of a bag to show it, but I couldn't quite see anything except that it glittered. Gold coins? No, that wasn't quite right...

What was that? All of a sudden, Zoe had whipped around, drawing and pointing that pistol... for a second I actually thought that she had fired, but that was just because of the suddenness of the motion. She had turned away from where I was looking, towards the stern of the ship, and eventually I realized that somebody had been hiding there, half under Serenity, with a rifle. Eventually he came out, dropped the gun, and headed off to join the crowd. Mal shouted something, and he had to stop, just standing there in the middle of nowhere.

This was exciting, if somewhat tense, and I wondered what sort of a stunt Patience might pull next for Zoe to suss out. (And Mal too I guess, he hadn't been slow to figure out what was going on as far as I could tell.) Then, all of a sudden, it was over. Patience handed over the rough burlap sack; Mal took a quick look inside, counted, and made a 'give it up' gesture to Patience, after which she handed over a few other shiny objects. Then Mal and Zoe headed off obviously letting Patience's people at the cargo, heading back for the cargo bay doors. It seemed like the whole thing had ended with a pitiful little whimper.

And then, right before they'd have stepped out of sight, I saw Patience pull out her own gun and point it at Mal. I screamed out a warning that couldn't possibly be heard, and rushed out of the shuttle before the shot could be heard. Don't remember getting down to the cargo bay, but Zoe had Mal inside, he bleeding plenty from a hit to the upper arm, and the doors closing before I met up with them. She hit the intercom and tersely told Wash to 'take her up gentle and set us down again somewhere steady and safe, two minutes ago.' Mal was already trying to tear a bandage out of his own shirt without much success.

"What?" I asked, a bit confused. "She shot the captain. Ain't you gonna - I dunno, go back out and give them all what for?"

Zoe nearly blinked at me. "Just me, with the captain hurt, against the whole mob? I'm a good shot and tough in a close fight, Kaylee dear, but I ain't no Cortex super girl."

"But to just..."

"It was just a message, anyway," Mal said with a bit of dry pleasure in his tone. "Could've probably taken my heart at that range, but she didn't want to. Not after striking the bargain. But she wanted to inform me in the clearest possible terms how dire things had been for her world on account of our lateness. And that's why she waited until we were almost inside, too."

"Don't talk so much, sir," Zoe said attentively. "It ain't helpin' stop the flow of blood any." She looked at me, and we could all feel Serenity take off - fairly gently as such things go, but still shaking a bit. I expected that Zoe would either head for the infirmary toot sweet herself to gather some supplies, or ask me to go, but she didn't even seem to spare any attention to that - she was pulling a bandanna or something out of the pocket of her rough brown shirt and tied it tightly around the very top of the arm, just below the shoulder and above the point of the wound.

But this was no time to just be standing around and watching, and I realized that if Zoe weren't gonna ask for me to run and fetch supplies, I could go anyway and take my own guess as to what she'd need without bothering her about it. Heavy adhesive bandages would be helpful but not critical if she knew how to get that tourniquet set up, but --

Once in the room, (which was decorated in an appropriately blue shade and always seemed to feel very sterile and cold,) I grabbed the bandages, antiseptic to clean the wound, a few hypo needles of various sizes, some sugar-salt to help his body fight off shock until we (well, Zoe I guess,) could get him hooked up to a drip in here, and something that Wash had mentioned would help slow the heart rate without letting anything starve for the lack of blood. That would help make sure that even if the arm binding weren't tight, not much more blood would be lost.

Zoe smiled in approval when I returned with the stuff, and told me to watch his arm and how to tell if it looked like the tourniquet was too tight, while she attended to the needles and so on. Soon it was clear that Serenity had landed again. "Okay, this may be tough, but we're going to have to carry him carefully to the med station," Zoe announced. "Ready?"

"What... just the two of us?" I asked. "What about Wash?"

Zoe openly scoffed. "I'm not going to run to a man like him for help just because he's got a Y gene... and a tool between his legs. I know I can carry most of the weight, Kaylee - I just need someone to add a bit of leverage."

"Okay, okay," I said, though I didn't feel certain. The way that Zoe carried her end, though, it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Wash showed up as we were heading through the corridor approaching the infirmary, and seemed more than a bit hurt by Zoe starting without him, and her apparent disdain. Once we had Mal in the chair-bed, she turned to Wash and explained, fairly convincingly, that we still needed him up in the cockpit just in case any of Patience's people came looking for us, to warn her before if he thought he'd have to take off again, and so on. Looking back, though, I think that she just wanted it to be myself and not Wash helping take the bullet out.

That was weird, even if all I really needed to do was hand Zoe what she asked for. The bullet had gotten lodged up against Mal's arm bone, and she cut into him, (very carefully,) to take it out, and sewed him back up afterwards. They might not have a doctor here, but I'd have to say that Zoe's at least half as good as a one.

-----------

"Well, at least we got what we came for," Mal said a bit woozily when he came round an hour or so later. Wash had set Serenity flying off towards Paquin, which wouldn't take longer than a few days, and had come back to check on his boss once we were clear of Whitefall. "The jewels in that bag should fetch us fifty thousand on the right world - not Paquin, but maybe Persephone or Beaumonde. Of course, we'll have to give Badger his share, but still not bad."

"I don't understand why she didn't shoot you BEFORE handing over her side of the trade," Wash pointed out. "Or take it back, after she'd surprised you with that quick shot."

"Wouldn't have found it that easy," Zoe muttered irritably.

"More than that, it isn't her way," Mal said, though he looked a bit troubled by the question. "Patience is a canny mother dog, but she does run that place by her own code of honor, and she'll never lose face in the eyes of her people. Late though we were, we DID come and hand over the goods, and I guess that the townsfolk didn't want to see us killed or cheated on account of that. Paying us off fairly and then shooting me in the arm was probably a good solution to the question of how she should seem just and stern at the same time."

"I hope that we won't have this much excitement on Paquin," I said.

"Actually, I think we probably will have this much or more," Zoe mentioned, "but spread out much more thinly. Remember how little time we actually spent on Whitefall. A gunshot and having to fix it up is some excitement, but not a huge amount for such a small time."

"Ehh, whatever," I said, getting up. "Glad that you're alright, Mal. I, umm... I should go check on the engines. This is the first time they've been running without all the weight of those containers down in the bay."

"Does it really make a difference?" Mal asked, and then considered. "Doesn't it just make things better on them?"

"It's less strain to push, yeah," I said from the door of the infirmary. "But... well, if you've been carrying a heavy weight for a while, and then somebody takes it off and lets you run free, you might be so eager and so unused to the speed that you pull something in your leg, or your side, right?" Mal nodded, a bit uncertain. "Not sure if the same thing can happen to a ship like Serenity, but if it can, then I want to spot it early and soothe the hurt."

"Good enough," Zoe said with a trace of a smile before I turned away.

--------------

Everything seemed fine in Serenity's engine room - Wash wasn't really pushing her hard, even though we did want to get to Paquin soon, and by everything I could feel the ship was enjoying herself but not so much that it might be trouble. I ended up going back down into my bunk, activating the Cortex - and I found a delayed wave waiting for me. Must have come in before well before we landed - I'd been much too busy or anxious to be down here next to the source, and if Wash had spotted traffic coming through for me, he'd probably been too busy with the approach to think anything of it or remember to mention it to me lately. Curious, I tapped, wondering who it would be from - the family? Bester cursing my name again? One of the hometown crew?

None of the above, as far as I could tell. 'It's good to know that you've finally taken a great big step into the wide 'Verse,' the message said with no preamble, the words on my screen oddly stylish. 'It seems that our paths will cross on Paquin, so if you please, come to the Blue Bullfrog at eight in the evening of the 15th. Wear something colorful. I shall keep my own identity reserved at this time so that I may remain...' (And a blank space here before the signature,) 'Your Secret Admirer.'

Something was very strange here. I felt like I couldn't concentrate on thinking while the words hung on my Cortex, so I hit a button that would make them go away. (For a second I wasn't sure if I'd saved the wave or deleted it completely, and wasn't so worried.) A secret admirer? There had been a few boys sweet on me back home, but... but as far as I knew, all of them were still on Three Hills. Certainly none of them woulda been able to track Serenity and tell that we were headed to Paquin, even if for some reason they might go there, on a trip with family or some kind of business engagement.

Who, really, *could* have tracked me to Serenity and then figured out where we were headed? That question completely floored me, so I pulled up the wave logs and tried to track the message to its source. Got as far as Paquin and then to some sort of a public Cortex source bar, no luck at all trying to get through to their own records for who had paid for that particular screen at that time, and whoever it was hadn't used a wave account that was registered anywhere else. If I wanted to know for sure who it was... I'd probably have to go and make the rendezvous.

Later in the day, I did ask Wash a little about who might be able to figure out where we were going. He said that he hadn't had to fill out an official flight plan since they left Beaumonde with Patience's cargo - it had said that they were bound for Whitefall, (not mentioning Three Hills - that had been an emergency landing,) and nothing further - the offer for a job on Paquin had come through after leaving Beaumonde, and Whitefall didn't have any kind of flight authority that interfered with ships coming or going - which was probably part of why Patience had set herself up there. Neither did Three Hills, apparently, outside of the one city spaceport, for no one had challenged Serenity when landing there or taking off in the countryside.

We did have a navigational beacon aboard, that could be read by various satellites and stations to tell who we were and where we were heading, and if somebody was paying attention to our course from Whitefall, it would be easy enough to guess that we were heading for Paquin. Or - to anybody who knew Serenity by name and Mal's reputation, they might have heard that he was expected at Paquin for the job, though hopefully whoever Mal and Zoe were going to be robbing hadn't heard that they were coming already. That would be bad.

"Going back to the beacon thing, I don't think that any nav array they've got at Paquin would be able to detect us yet," Wash said thoughtfully. "One of those big Athens navsats might have traced us far enough before we got out of its range, but to hack into one from Paquin... I don't think that anyone but Mister Universe could put all this together, honestly."

I blinked. "Who's Mister Universe? Some kind of verse-wide good boogeyman, like the opposite of them storybook Reavers?"

Now it was Wash's turn to look surprised. "No, Mister Universe is real enough, though that's not his name I imagine. I... I told you that I was second in my flight class?" I nodded. "He was first, though he couldn't even have driven the mule safely without tipping it over, never mind an air-car or a shuttle. But he was great with computers, and used that to get him certified with all kinds of other things, just for the heck of it I think. Felt kinda bad that he cheated to beat me on the final scores, and I knew just how bad things went the one time he had to go for a practice flight without an autopilot on, so - he told me a bit about himself, and I've got a wave code I can use to call in a favor if there's ever a computer emergency. Not quite sure where he got to, but I doubt we'll see him on Paquin."

And this Mister Universe guy didn't seem too likely to be calling himself my secret admirer, so I let him drift to the far back of my mind and find a place for himself as a notion there. "Well, thanks. Just sort of wondered, don't think anything of it."

"You sure??" Wash looked up from the flight console, and I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound like I really was hiding something, so I just shrugged and left.

-------------

"Okay, let's see... guns," Zoe decided, tossing out the seven of that suit, a kind of shotgun-looking thing. Wash played low with the three, looking depressed, and Mal tossed away a low-ranking moon because he was out of guns. Everybody turned to look at me. "What have you got for me, Kaylee?"

It was the evening of our leaving Whitefall, and after dinner, Mal and Wash had cooked up the idea of teaching me to play 'double-team.' "Okay, I... I'm not sure it's the right thing to do," I started, "but I'm going to double up. Having no guns..."

"Oh, no," Zoe moaned as I put down the two of moons and the five of beasts.

"Afraid so. Discarding two different non-trump suits to a non-trump lead of a third suit allows the lower ranking discard to function as a trump. So my two of moons trumps your gun, because none of them are ships and ships are trump this round."

"Okay, okay," Zoe sighed. "You've only got the one card left now, so what is it?" I laid it down as the lead to the eighth trick - the six of moons. Mal took that trick with the Best of moons, then led out the seven of trumps, winning that trick too.

"Hey, wait just a moment," I said, seeing something happen that hadn't been explained in the rules. "Mal's to lead to the last trick, except he can't play to it, because he doubled up too and has one less card than you too. So... does the lead pass around clockwise, through me, to Zoe?"

"Not clockwise," Wash explained, though he was frowning. "It's the last person who won a trick who still has cards... but that's still Zoe. What have you got?"

"Another gun," Zoe said, playing the six, and Wash put down his Big of Beasts with a disappointed frown. (Or is that just the Big Beast? Yeah, I think so.) "So, that means that Mal and I made our six tricks, just, and score for the deal."

"Did I do wrong to pull that trump trick?" I asked Wash, my unofficial partner for that round, though everything would change when the cards were next dealt. Mal was gathering up everyone's tricks and starting to shuffle them. "I mean..."

"No, the trump trick was fine," he said. "If my high card had been a moon instead of a beast, we'd have stopped them. But you could only play with the cards you were dealt, and me too. There wasn't any way to stop them by then."

"Alright." Mal started dealing silently, and I looked at the first few cards I got. A firefly card was the first, which was actually only the two of ships, but it brought a smile to my face anyway, which might make someone think I'd gotten a higher card if they were watching my face. The only lower ship in the deck was a mid-size shuttle.

"So, did you solve the mystery of who might be tracking us to Paquin?" Wash asked conversationally.

"Tracking us??" Mal asked, tossing a card across the table with too much force in his surprise and dropping it in Zoe's lap. "Somebody's tracking us?"

"Not, exactly," I muttered, sorry that I'd come to Wash.

"She came to the cockpit this afternoon, wondering if anybody might know that we were heading for Paquin," Wash said.

"Okay, fine," I groaned, and told them all about the wave that I'd gotten. "I... I'm not going to go and meet whoever it is, but..."

"No, I think that you had *better* go," Mal said softly. "Just to be sure that whoever it is, they ain't gonna be a problem. Zoe and I will mix with the crowd at the bar first, subtly, so that we can cover and protect you if need be."

"Subtly, sir?" Zoe quirked an eyebrow. "When were you ever able to manage subtlety in such a situation as this?"

"When we got the data pen from Jorgen Niska on Saint Albans, you weren't sayin' that I was unsubtle..."

"You were lucky that he didn't manage to lay eyes on you before you got close, that was all..."

I sighed. "Is every little thing such a big deal with you people?"

Mal was distracted from whatever somewhat-witty retort he was about to make to Zoe by my remark, blinked a few times, and started to deal the cards for the next hand. "Somebody taking an interest in who's on my ship and where it's going, yes, that's a big deal until we can demonstrate that it's not. Especially someone who's not forthcoming with his or her true identity for whatever reasons."

"Okay," I said, sighing slightly. Nobody said much until Mal had finished dealing, and I considered all of my cards. "Closed call on moons."

"Open call on ships," Wash sang back after Zoe passed.

"Pass," Mal said. "Not going to take off on my own after that."

"I'll reserve," I said. "Zoe, you going to take Wash up on his offer?"

"I... I think so," she muttered a bit distastefully. "Five on ships."

"Closed call for seven on moons," I said, waiting to see if Wash or Zoe would up their partnership bid. Neither did.

Okay, so now I had to recruit a partner to help me make seven tricks out of eight - I could either pick a player directly or call for a card that I didn't hold. "Call on the Best of Guns."

"That'd be me, too," Zoe said, smiling over at me. "Make your lead."

-------------

The Paquin spaceport was a fairly plain place - a sort of rectangular field, grass growing here and there where it hadn't been trodden down or blasted to death by ship exhaust, subdivided into lots of varying sizes and designated walkways. On one side the spaceport was pretty much open to farmland, on another there was a simple chain fence, on a third there was a sort of row of stalls like in a market - spare parts, fuel sales, repair contractors, and the like. The fourth side was the wall of a one-story building. Mal sent Wash off to see about getting Serenity some fuel to drink from one of the stall booths, and then we went to the building. This seemed to be a sort of spaceport office and terminal for anyone arriving or departing on a commercial liner. Mal paid off the rent for our landing lot in cash, and then we left by another way, heading into the busy streets of the town.

This was much more exciting, with street performers all around and large, unfamiliar animals being led or ridden down the center of the street. I wanted to dawdle, to linger over every little thing, but Mal and Zoe were walking ahead all purposeful, and I didn't really want them to leave me behind and only realize it after losing track - that might just make Mal really mad. "Do - do you know where the Blue Bullfrog is?" I asked them.

"Oh, yeah," Mal said, and something about the question struck him as funny. He turned to Zoe. "Do you remember the time we..."

"...met Li Shen there?" Zoe filled in, smiling. "She'd come dressed up as a mime, and wouldn't talk until we were out of sight. Now THERE is a person who could teach you a thing or two about subtle, Mal."

"Subtle? The whole bar was starin' at her!!"

"But not a one of them suspected who she really was," Zoe filled in. "I only hope that we'll be so lucky."

As part of their plan, Mal and Zoe had each dressed very differently from their normal style. Zoe was all glitzed up, wearing a slinky dark red dress, (the color of old blood, it occurred to me, though I wasn't sure I liked that connection,) and her hair all down. Mal, on the other hand, was even more ragged than usual, not quite transient level of disreputable, but nearly so.

And me, well, I'd put on a tie-dyed sundress, since the message said to wear something colorful. "Well, we'd better tell you the route, Kaylee, and split up," Mal put in, and I realized that he'd been thinking of our various disguises at the same time as I had. "No point in all going in separately if we walk all the way to the bar. I'll lead the way, Zoe comes next, and then you. Don't worry, it's a safe town and nobody should give you trouble. Down this way two blocks, then cross the street, up one and a half of the next. You'll see the blue sign..."

"Actually, that's something I've been wondering about," Zoe put in dryly. Mal looked up at her. "Just how are any of us going to be crossing the street, considering that there appears to be a gorram parade down it today?"

Mal looked up at the street, and it was as if he'd noticed the animals and the jugglers and assorted floats for the first time. "Hmm. Now, well, that is an unexpected complication," he admitted. "Doesn't seem to be too formal an affair - we could probably each run across one at a time if we plan it out right. See?" He pointed, and indeed, somebody was making a runner across the street between the jugglers and what appeared to be a trained bear.

That was the way we ended up doing it, each taking care to cross at different times, places, and in different ways, so that nobody would think anything of the pattern. I found the bullfrog sign without any problem, nerved myself and took a deep breath, checked on Mal and Zoe being there as I walked in without trying to be too obvious about it, and settled at an empty table for two. "Blue Sun Lager," I told the waitress. "Has anyone been, well... hanging around waiting for..."

"If they knew you were coming, honey, there'd have been a lot of guys waiting for you to show up," the waitress laughed. "But I can't say that I've noticed anybody. I'll have your drink in just a moment."

I smiled as she turned away, and looked around the bar, this time not paying much attention to Mal or Zoe, just taking in the feel of the place. The blue and frogs theme, (often both at the same time,) was repeated a bit too often, but the effect was one of fun and whimsy, and so I didn't mind. The customers were a mix - some rather somber and depressing, farmers and factory worker types, and brightly dressed street performers chattering among themselves. What was behind the carnival atmosphere of Paquin, anyway? Did they keep this sort of thing, with the parades and whatnot, up all the time, or had we just landed during some kind of a festival or something?

All of a sudden, somebody slipped into the seat opposite before I'd noticed her - a girl around my own age, with chestnut-red curls and a tiny little nose. "Don't worry, 'Lee, I haven't gone and switched teams. Just - well, maybe it wasn't the funniest joke to play, but I liked the notion of you sitting here waiting for some mysterious man and not expecting me."

For a second I was completely beyond speech. Then... "Melany? It... it was you that sent that wave?"

"Who else would have known to meet you here, tinker?" Melany laughed softly. "Come on... I know that I didn't say so, but I thought that you'd be eager enough to have a few drinks with an old friend, talk about the old days back home, maybe get into a little harmless trouble."

"Yeah, I just..." I looked around, suddenly worried. Sure enough, Zoe had noticed someone taking the spot across from me, (probably she and Mal had been just as clueless as I about the idea that my 'secret admirer' might be of the female persuasion, and far from spotting Melany before she got to me, she must have been slow to react even after that point,) and was heading over with a hard look on her face, pissed about missing the obvious. I waved my hand in her direction and flashed the sign that Mal had told me to use for 'all OK, don't interfere?'

Zoe stopped short enough that I was wondering if she'd have to windmill her arms, but there was no trace of uncertainty in her stance, (even in the high heeled shoes that were part of her disguise.) She signed to me herself - 'are you sure - repeat that?'

I repeated what I'd done before, adding 'yes, go.' Melany had noticed all the hand gestures by this point. "What's all the charades about?"

"Um, the crew of the ship I signed on with, and the captain," I said. "They - they were worried about me getting into trouble when I admitted that I had no notion of who'd sent me the wave or if I wanted to meet him... so they came along in case it was a dangerous man who was askin' for a poundin'."

"Oh, I see." Melany giggled. "Well, I guess you saved me from that, and I'm much grateful."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "So, um, what about... Barret? He nearby?"

"Somewhere on Paquin, I think, or maybe in orbit." Melany shrugged that off with a hand gesture of her own. "He doesn't mind me having fun on my own, if that's what you're worried about."

"Umm... okay," I said, a bit uncertainly. Looked out into the rest of the bar. Mal had apparently been noticed by someone who recognized him. I couldn't tell if it was someone who wanted to kill him, someone who thought he owed him money, or someone who was sincerely glad to see him. Zoe had picked up on that too, and still unnoticed herself, she seemed to be hanging back and waiting for the right moment to interfere - if it came. Also, the waitress was coming back to the table with my beer.

"Oh, my mistake honey, I guess I just assumed it was a young man you were expecting," she said, handing over the bottle, with the ever-familiar blue logo on it. I paid her off from the pouch of spending coins that Mal had given me before we landed.

"It was... but apparently what I've got is an old girlfriend who likes to play dubious jokes over the cortex," I said.

"Mix me up a Londinium Lobotomy," Melany ordered the waitress in her best queenly tone. "Oh, and I can pay for your drink too, 'Lee - I'm all flush."

"Maybe you get the next round, then," I said, a bit uncertainly. "So, um, what've you seen since leaving home?"

------------

I guess I should explain a bit. Melany Waite grew up in the same small town as I did back on Three Hills, and we were pretty good friends from the time that I was fourteen or so on. She never quite felt that the wrench monkey routine I like was good for a girl, hence the nickname she has for me of 'tinker,' and I guess I'm just as clueless about some of her favorite party habits. But in a fairly dull and quiet town, she was the only other girl my age who I felt understood my passion for everything that life had to offer. We've also been just about equally boy-nuts ever since gettin' our girly parts in, which was another reason for spending time together.

About a year back, maybe not quite, there was a well-to-do tourist from Ariel, Barret Thomas, who went slumming on Three Hills and through the little villages of the Southeast desert country. Melany took one look and threw herself at him, and he was happy enough to catch her. I was never surprised at the whirlwind affair and planetary tour that they had together - I went along for part of it and flirted with one or two cute guys in the entourage myself. (The one I liked best was pretty much a local, actually, a hanger-on that Barret had found and invited when he first landed at Star City.) But I admit I was floored when Melany told me that Barret wanted to give her a lift off-planet, to take her with him when he left, and that she was going to do it.

"But what're you going to do there, out in the 'verse?" I asked. "I mean, I understand about wanting to see more than just these desert plains, but... maybe after you've finished that Cortex business course..."

"That doesn't matter any more, 'tinker," she said. "Maybe it makes sense for you to keep learning more in the safety of this little town, but for me... No, Barret's going to be teaching me more about brokering deals than I could ever learn on some go-se free Cortex seminar. And it'll be fun staying with him wherever he goes... for a little while at least."

That's all there was to it, more or less. I stopped trying to talk her out of it early - her parents weren't nearly so eager, and her father actually did lock her in the basement for a few hours, but then gave up when he realized that Melany'd probably be able to keep him from ever getting a moment's peace in his lounge down there if he made her miss Barret's flight, and so on. After she made her big farewell scene, I got dozens of waves from her, but over the course of a few months they gradually petered out. I hadn't thought of Melany in ages, which is part of why I hadn't considered the idea that the secret admirer signature was just the kind of joke it was like her to play.

-----------

I woke up in an unfamiliar bed - much comfier than... well, than anything I'd slept in ever, as far as I could think of, which included the new bunk, the hammock, and my prefabbed jack-size bed at home. Then again, when I had been tagging along with Melany and Barret the first time around...

Melany. A wave of impressions from last night came back to me all at once, though not a one of them included a memory of the evening winding down or getting to wherever I was now. Hopefully, that lack was just on account of having too much alcohol, and not some of the other pleasures that Melany usually indulged in. Let's see now, scooch up just a little in bed, don't bother trying to open your eyes just yet, and try to sort things out in a natural order.

The Blue bullfrog. I'd had another drink in the middle of a reminiscence about the old days... was a bit concerned about Mal and whoever had found him, but he didn't seem to be in any dire straits as they left, Zoe still following. She'd waved back at me, not a signal this time, just a wave of the hand. (Or I hadn't remembered if there had been any extra significance to that.) Melany had started to tell me something about how she'd bought a ground-car garage on Lilac, fired all of the mechanics, turned it into a new aircar sales lot, and sold the business to somebody else at a ninety percent pure profit, which was apparently why she was buying me drinks.

"Wait a second, how did you have the money to even put up for the place?" I asked. I didn't comment on feeling sorry for the mechanics, because I felt Melany wouldn't understand any empathy for them. "Was it Barret's?"

"He lent me a little - he usually does, if he likes a notion that I've got," Melany said. "I'd already gotten a nest egg of my own from a few other deals I'd made. Anyway, what made you decide to sign up for a junker like Serenity? I'd always sort of expected you to sign onto some spaceship as a mechanic, but when I pulled the specifications..."

"Serenity's not a junker," I said, more sharply than I meant to. "She might not be the prettiest ship on the outside, or the biggest or the fastest, but... well, it's kind of a funny story how I ended up with her, and I don't regret a bit of it." That started me off about Bester.

And speaking of Bester... yes, there had been guys. One for each of us... mine had been a student stage magician, and he was VERY good with his hands for more than just pulling bunnies out of top hats. His friend, who Melany had started clinging to, had been a 'strongman' without a shirt on. Petherr, that had been the name of the magician, and I opened my eyes at this point, wondering if I'd find out that I wasn't the only one in the bed. It took a while for my eyes to pick out anything in the very dim light, so I impatiently moved my legs and arms around to confirm that yes, I was alone. Managed to hit a contact button on the wall that pulled up the drapes over a small window. Heard a very Melany-ish groan in response.

"Oh, sorry," I muttered, and spent a while trying to get the drapes to stop halfway before giving up and letting them close all the way, now that my eyes were working better. Melany was sprawled out on the extender couch of the decently nice hotel room, and there was nobody else to be seen. Muttering to myself, I picked up my dress from the chest at the foot of the bed and started to slip it on. No stranger to drink really, but I'd never actually blacked out before, and I didn't hardly like the notion.

Melany was way too out of it to be roused to real speech, it turned out, so I tapped in a note for her on the room's Cortex screen, checked that my carry-bag was accounted for except for about as much money as I'd spent on drinks and so on, and slipped out of the room. Guy behind the desk was really nice, and told me how to get back to the 'port without asking about how I'd gotten here and not known where 'here' was. The morning seemed to be well on, Paquin time, and a little bit less festive than before, though there were still street entertainers here and there, as I hurried back to Serenity's berth.

"Just who was that girl?" Zoe asked irritably as I closed the cargo bay doors up again. "I thought that you were expecting... or, well, if you're a fan of romance with the ladies too, there's nothing wrong with that, but you might have..."

"No, no," I said. "Sorry. Melany's an old friend from back home, and she wasn't really romancing me, just... just playing a bit of a gag. I'm sorry." Something occurred to me. "Mal - he's okay, right? I mean, that guy..."

"Mal's all right, for the moment," Zoe said. "That man who saw him was an army acquaintance of ours. Mal managed to get him to a private place and, erm, impress upon him how important it was that certain people shouldn't realize either of us are here on Paquin. That's all."

"Oh, okay." I went over to the stairs. "Glad to hear."

"So what happened between you and your old friend, after you found out that it was her?" Zoe asked.

"Umm... we, well... we caught up on recent news in each of our lives, and jawed about old times, made some time with a few guys we met, and drank quite a bit. Ended up in, I guess it was her hotel room." Zoe's brow furrowed, and I realized what she might be worried about. "Don't worry, I didn't tell her anything about what brought Serenity to Paquin... well, she asked, and I just said I wasn't quite sure, that we had some cargo to take on or something like that."

"Good enough. You're sure that you didn't elaborate on that later... after more drinking?"

"Em- fairly sure."

"Okay then. A bit surprised that you didn't stay at the hotel. You do realize that we won't be needing you to work on the engines for a few days, right?"

"Yeah, but... I couldn't stay away without knowing that Mal was all right."

"If something HAD gone wrong, your concern would probably have been seven hours too late or more," Zoe said icily, and I groaned softly.

"I get it. So - what's Wash up to?"

"HE'S helping us with this caper." That hint, too, I couldn't help but get.

"So, there's no reason for me to hang around here?" I asked.

"None that I can see. Take this, though." Zoe walked across the cargo bay, rummaged around in a small container, and tossed me a little black communicator wand. "Keep this with you, or at the very least check it OFTEN. When the job is done, I'll call you on that."

"Alright," I said. "I'll just pack a bag up in my bunk, and then I'll be out of your hair."

"Good enough."

-----------

Out of sheer curiosity, when I bumped into Wash upstairs, I asked him what the job was about. He said that he didn't know much, except that they had to steal a tiny little grain of some extremely rare 'metal element' that he couldn't remember what Zoe called it. So I wished him good luck, headed back in town, and surprised myself a little by immediately remembering the route back to the hotel and Melany's room number.

Knocked on the door and was a bit surprised to have Barret open up. "Oh, I didn't expect to see you here," I told him.

"Well, I'm pleased that Melany found you, Kaylee," Barret replied with that charming smile of his. He was tall, with short, light brown hair, and his usual expensive-looking clothes.

"Glad that you came back over, Kaylee," Melany said, coming out of the washroom and wearing a dressing gown. "Your note sort of sounded like it might be farewell for good."

"Yeah, well... I checked in with the ship, and they don't need me for a while," I said.

"We've ordered room service and were going to eat out on the terrace," Barret put in. "There's probably enough to share."

"Umm, thanks, yeah, I didn't grab breakfast or anything," I admitted. Just at that point room service knocked on the door. The room still didn't look terribly fancy, but the staff was definitely very polite and helpful. Soon we were all arranged around a table out on the little fenced-in patio outside the room.

"So, what brings you to Paquin, anyway?" I asked.

"I'm brokering a security deal - trying to catch a robber. My client is worried that a small but rather valuable metal sample will be taken in the next few days," Barret said proudly. "I got the best anti-burglary team possible assembled and am serving as liaison between them and the circus management."

"A... a metal sample?" I asked. "Like some kind of rare element?"

"Well, yes!" he agreed, sounding delighted that I knew of such things. "Dubnium. Just a little speck about as big as a grain of sand."

"Oh, boy," I whispered. What did I do now??

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Chapter 3

Week Three

"There's got to be something else to do on this little circus of a planet," Melany complained, shaking out her dark red hair impatiently. "What do you think, Kaylee?"

I just sort of grunted in response. Melany's relentless pursuit of 'fun' in all of its forms could get a bit - well, relentless. But more than that, I was eager to get back to Serenity and my new crew, to join in whatever thrilling heroics that we were sharing. Zoe, however, had made it pretty clear that my services and presence were not ready until the ship was ready to leave Paquin again, and she would make a point of calling me back to duty.

Nobody else realized how caught in the middle of this caper I was - nobody but my own self. Mal, Zoe, and Wash had been hired to steal a tiny grain of Dubnium away from Paquin's largest circus corporation, bankrolled by one of the core worlds. Melany's sugar daddy, (was that unfair? He was a rich boyfriend, who was bankrolling her own attempts to get rich quick,) was coordinating a special security team hired to catch any burglars making a try for the Dubnium. Neither my new crew nor my old friend's good friend realized that the other was involved in the same thing.

At least I didn't feel any indecision in my loyalties. If Melany herself had been more involved in the security deal it might have been different, but... I liked Barret, the boyfriend, fine, but couldn't care less whether he failed on any particular job he took on. And the 'Serenity' gang - I was one of them, no matter that I wasn't with them at the moment. So I'd been warned of a danger to the mission, and had to find some way to thwart it by myself... without knowing anything about the plans for their theft, and being told precious little about the security detail. *Da-shiong bao-jah-shr duh la doo-tze* (Pardon my mandarin.)

"Kaylee, are you even listening to me?" Melany put in. "I've asked you twice now just how insufferably boring you think this hover-bus countryside tour would be."

"Probably pretty bad," I said. "They don't seem to have much scenery around here different from what we both remember back home." Melany nodded. "Maybe we could drop in on Barret's project again? I'm sorry, I just love all of that video monitoring and recording stuff."

"Oh, lord," Melany sighed in exactly that same tone that she usually used when whatever something I had said seemed particularly cruel and unnatural to her. "Do you want to jump careers from mechanics to security or something? I think Barret's starting to get that notion."

"Well, it's interesting, but... no, I prefer Serenity's engines," I admitted. "Just... they aren't doing much at the moment and I'm not supposed to spend the layover reworking them in the spaceport, so..."

"Hmm." Melany considered again. "Well, maybe the three-ring will be worth a visit after all. I think that they're almost ready for the big premiere and all, so there'll be final rehearsals and all to see. Maybe I'll get a chance to ride one of those pretty pastel blue Londinium horses."

"Okay, sure," I said. "When can we head out?"

"You're going to go dressed like that?" Melany asked, and I looked down at the simple white cotton shirt and olive-green shorts I had on. "Well, yeah, I guess for pestering the security folks, it'll do. I need something a bit fancier."

"Don't dress up all the way to the nines if you're thinkin' of horse riding," I suggested.

"Oh, yeah, right. Okay." She finished the last breakfast pastry that had been delivered by room service, ruffled in a suitcase, and picked out a black sweater and tight pants that looked to me like they'd be okay for riding. (Not from experience - I'm more a mule girl than a horsy fan, as it were,) and disappeared into the can to change.

As soon as she was gone, I was a little surprised to find myself hurrying over to the Cortex terminal and logging in through an anonymizer so that there'd be no trace of what I did on Melany's system. I *had* to warn somebody at Serenity of the danger, and out of the choices available, Wash seemed the most likely to take me serious and not over-react. I sent out a quick message outlining what little I knew of the extra security and told him how to route a reply back through so that Barret and Melany wouldn't get a trace of it, if he had any questions to ask or suggestions for what action I could try to take.

Just seconds after I'd sent the message off, Melany came back in, looking very styly in her new outfit, and asked me to hurry up if we were going to go. "What were you doing?" she asked as I turned the Cortex screen off.

Ai ya, hwai leh! I should've reset the unit so that there wouldn't be any trace of my privacy routines the next time it was used - but now there was no chance to do it without lookin' suspicious. "Just lookin' for any info about your horses, but I couldn't see anything quick."

"Huh. The layout looked a little funny," Melany said, but she shrugged and turned to the door first. I stabbed at the reset button and followed out. Way too lucky for my karma.

------------

I let Melany stay at the jumping ground and pester the horse groom to her heart's content, and only spared one moment's attention to the pretty blue and green coats that had probably bred true for generations, after some bio whiz-boy had first whipped some specimens up in a tube. Made tracks over to the nearest security station - none of the special guys watching over the Dubnium were here, of course, but Barret had introduced me around the day before yesterday and between that recommendation and a bit of natural charm, I was able to find out where they were and what was up today.

That was about as much success as I had for the day though, and after hanging around for two hours and a bit more, I ended up going back to look for Melany. There were only so many questions I could ask without losing that quality of innocence that I needed to keep up. If only I knew what was important, but... well, we'd sort that out. They'd had no trouble so far, which was reassuring. Maybe the gang wouldn't need my help, or maybe I could be around when they made their move and see what I had to do then.

Melany was sitting at a table in the refreshments tent, talking with a girl who seemed a bit older than us. "Hey, Melany, are you bored with your horses already?" I asked, coming over to stand in front of the third and empty chair.

"Not bored, but saddle sore," Melany laughed, dropping one hand down as if to run it over her rear end, though she couldn't really touch those parts of her butt while she was sitting down on them. "And quite pleased to be."

"Okay I guess," I said. "An' who's your friend?" I'd been surprised to see her with a female - either a guy companion, (who might or might not be Barret,) or enjoying a snack alone would have seemed much more likely.

"Oh, right. Inara, this is Kaylee Frye, a good friend of mine from back home. Kaylee - Inara Serra, registered companion from Sihnon. Barret's an -- old friend of Inara's. We met a few weeks ago back on Ariel, and I guess from hearing us talk about the big Circus, she decided that it would be worth her while in coming."

"It's more of a coincidence, really," Inara replied in a rich and throaty Sihnon accent. "Was approached by a fascinating man with an offer to be his escort to Paquin for a week and a half. It's just the kind of commission that I was looking for recently, so... here I am."

"Interesting," I said. Wasn't quite sure what I thought of the Companion's guild in general - hadn't seen or heard much of them first-hand on Three Hills, and the things that I'd heard grownups saying about them seemed petty and narrow. (Of course, boys my age usually couldn't get enough of the idea of a beautiful Companion as a fantasy object, even when they had a pretty and eager local girl eager to have some fun, but that was something that I'd resigned myself to.)

Inara seemed friendly, exotic, and mysterious in equal measure - with dark brown curly hair bound up on top of her head in a slightly overdone elaborate twist, and wearing a richly patterned purple and white wraparound kimono with a checkerboard pattern of letters that seemed to include more than three alphabets, only two of which I'd ever seen. The fabric managed to cling to and conceal her body at the same time, as far as I could see, which was just a bit shy of waist level. Somehow, no matter what the terms of the deal might be, I could certainly see any number of rich men paying well for the privileges of her company.

"So, umm... what's next for you after this?" I asked. "Back to the Core worlds?"

"No, actually, I'm meaning to find some passage further out, or at least stay reasonably far into the borderlands," Inara said, animated by interest in the subject. "I *have* to see some of Persephone, of course, the architecture is supposed to be lovely. And I have an old friend who's running an - independent establishment of her own, now... way out on Eta."

"Really?" Melany asked. "A companion?"

"Not anymore. Actually, it's not a story that I should spread around so freely. How do you like Paquin yourself so far, Melany?" Inara smiled gently at her and waited for the reply.

------------

'A special security detachment? Why didn't you message me sooner, Kaylee? We're ready to move tomorrow morning, but this could be important. Using the cortex or communicators isn't safe enough for ongoing conversation, and we can't let them guess what's happening. Can you get back to Serenity, just before the port closes up at 2200? Mal knows, and he's going to tell Zoe. Good luck. Wash.'

Oh, great. Well, at least I was going to get to hear something from my new friends - my new crew. If even mild and joking Wash had brought up the idea that I should have mentioned this sooner, then Mal or Zoe might rant and rave. But that didn't matter so much. After dinner with Melany, Barret didn't join us, but our performing friends from that first night did, and I let myself get flirted at by Petherr without really caring enough to send him any clear signals back. Maybe that made me seem like a mystery girl. I rigged the communicator to go off in the middle of drinks, went out into the street to 'take' the call, and came back in telling Melany and Petherr that I'd been summoned back for a 2200 curfew at my ship.

"That sounds odd. Are you leaving again in the morning, so soon?" Melany asked.

"No, I just think... they've found something that needs doing in the engine, or maybe we've got cargo to haul up. Early morning start, and if I'm there for curfew they know I'll be rested and ready to work, instead of a morning call when I might have been out partying all night."

"Okay... well, I hope that we'll be able to meet up before you do weigh anchor," Melany said, hugging me. "And - a goodnight toast, but nothing too strong on account of having to work in the morning."

"Oh, we've got time for more than a goodnight toast," Petherr's friend put in. Terric, I think his name was. "It's hardly 2030 yet."

So we went out to 'paint the town' once more, and having told my big fib to get me back to Serenity without arousing any suspicion, I actually started to put the heist caper and everything else out of my mind. For the first time since that first night, (which was still a little drenched with beer and spirits,) I just enjoyed spending time with Melany and the boys. Before dropping me off at the hotel to pack up my few things, Petherr gave me a goodnight kiss that made me regret that I probably wouldn't be seeing him again. He was a sweet and mischievous young man, if a little too quiet.

The spaceport was definitely starting to shut down as I approached, my chrono reading 2158 local time. I wondered for a moment if they ever sealed the landing rectangle entirely, or forbade ships from taking off in the middle of the night - there was nothing overhead that could stop one, after all.

The hatch to the ship opened at my request silently. There was nobody in the cargo bay, or the downstairs lounge. I found the three of them talking animatedly around the kitchen table, paper sketches between them.

"Nice that you could meet us, Kaylee," Mal said. "Sorry if you felt that you weren't welcome around here on account of one night of too much drinking. Ain't a one here who would hold that against you, I'm pretty sure." He shot a fairly serious look over at Zoe. "Probably we all thought that you'd just be eager to enjoy the hospitality of a nice safe port town, especially with old friends of yours about."

"Yes, sir," I muttered, stepping up. "It was good to see Melany, and all... but when I signed on, it wasn't just to be take care of the engines. I'm one of the crew, whatever that means."

"It doesn't mean that you should share in our crimes," Zoe said firmly. "I'm not even wild that we're letting Wash try his hand at the crime, but he did insist often enough, and we needed a hand. Now it seems that you're also indispensable to the heist?"

"I... I don't know," I said. "Just luck that I found out that Barret Thomas was organizing an extra security detail for this Dubnium stuff. As it happens, I'm on the inside, and maybe that's of use to you. Whatever that means - information that I can get, sabotage I might perform, or just the warning that this loot is too hot and you should give up the job."

"I don't think that anyone's speaking of pulling out so far," Mal said. "The way things usually work in this sort of job is... a contact tells us about a promising item, and expects some of the proceeds as their agent's fee. If we take their info, case the joint, and then scram - they want some other sort of a fee."

"Well, let's start by sketching out the situation, as far as we know it," Wash suggested. "Then Kaylee will know if she's already found out anything relevant. The Dubnium was produced at an Alliance experimental fusion facility near Greenleaf, and it was ferried out here on a light courier ship along with some other expensive supplies for the big Circus. Right now, it's being kept under a computerized lock seal in the Walnut building, and there are nine guards watching over it. But tomorrow evening, it's got to be taken out so it can be used as the catalyst for some fireworks display..."

------------

And we talked on late into the night, so I was glad that I didn't have to actually work on the engines or cargo in the morning, although it didn't sound like I'd be able to just laze around half the day either. As I went down to my bunk and got ready for bed, the oddest thought hit me about that Companion lady, Inara - Wash said that Mal wanted to rent out one of the shuttles to a 'roving professional', and Inara said that she wanted to see more of the outer worlds. Was that a match that could work out? I wasn't sure. A Companion was certainly a far cry from a prospector or field scientist or whatever.

I stayed aboard ship for most of the morning, just because I'd said that I'd have work to do today, and it would seem strange to be back on the town too early. Plus, even though time was critical, I wasn't sure where I could find Barret until lunchtime, and the fact that he'd probably be separated from Melany was a bonus. So I started going over the notes and trying to make plans of my own.

My part in the plan was two-fold. One, I needed to find out who would be maintaining physical observation of the Dubnium as it traveled from the store building to the circus grounds. From what I'd heard and Mal's experience in such things, that would probably be just one or two of the special team - they didn't have a lot of manpower, and one would probably be out as an remote scout in each direction: rear, both flanks, and probably two forward. Zoe was sure that they'd be able to avoid these scouts once they knew what to look for, and they'd already made plans for the regular guards physically escorting the shipment.

The second thing that I needed to get was the electronic codes that would be controlling the surveillance and communications net. Barret would have them in a data pen or something similar on his person, and somehow I had to find some way to make a copy without letting him notice. Nothing to it, huh?

"Oh, hello there Kaylee," Barret said when he spotted me coming across the cafe towards his table. "Did your boss let you out for lunch already?"

"Yeah, I've got a break until 1400, actually," I said him, and gestured to the two empty chairs at the table with food in front of them. "Is Melany around here somewhere, or... friends of yours."

"Not Melany, no, she's off at a concert in the park or something like that," Barret said negligently. I guess his fling with Melany probably wouldn't last too long if he worried about keeping track of her too closely. "But... oh, here they are. Inara, Richoc."

"Kaylee, how wonderful to see you again," Inara said in that gorgeous voice of hers.

"Yes, so pleased," I said, and turned to the man - he had dusty brown skin, was a bit on the tall side and definitely as skinny as a tension wire... well, you know what I mean. Somehow, something seemed a bit threatening, or at least formidable, about his stance. "Is this your - current client?"

"Yes - Kaylee Frye, Richoc Whitter."

After meeting you and Melany yesterday, Inara told Richoc that they just *had* to meet me for lunch today," Barret said, gesturing the two of them to their seats. "What about you, Kaylee? Can you eat with us?"

"I... there doesn't seem to be a great amount of room free," I muttered, thinking of yesterday when it had been Melany and Inara at a similar table, with a third chair free for me. Now there was no available seat at all.

"Nonsense," Barret said expansively, and borrowed a chair from a nearby table myself, and moving his own place setting and Richoc's around so that there was room for me. I felt a little embarrassed about the fuss, but allowed the whole deal, because I really *did* need to spend some time with Barret, though I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to accomplish with Inara and Richoc around, and sitting next to Barret might give me an opportunity later on. I kept quiet at first, though, aside from placing an order for a sparkling cherry drink and some lemon tarts. And by watching and listening, I learned a LOT.

First off, it almost sounded like Inara and Richoc were working together to gently elicit information out of Barret, much better than I could possibly have done it. Their questions were focusing around the delivery to the circus, not the trip from the building to the circus, but I was able to put in a few questions of my own, just sounding like I was following the conversation with interest. My good luck that they wanted to know about Barret's work too, I guess, the job that had brought him to Paquin.

Around the time that I thought I had the info I'd need, but wasn't sure if I could still ask for clarification on one or two points, Inara finished her own questioning. Richoc was away from the table, and I looked around, finally finding him at the little jukebox console. A rich instrumental filled the place as he brought drinks back to the table. Barret looked around, as if he wasn't sure where the music had come from. Why had Richoc taken drinks by the jukebox, I had to wonder. Would have been better to go set the music first, and THEN go visit the bar, I'd have thought. Or... or just flagged down a waiter, as we'd been doing the whole time...

Unless he wanted to disguise the fact that he'd started the music. I wasn't sure why that notion came to me.

"Oh, I love this song," Inara said, getting up, and extending her hand to Barret. "Just one dance, for old time's sake?"

"Umm... there isn't really a dance floor," Barret pointed out. "Oh, come on, anything but those sad manga eyes. Alright, one song."

I watched, bemused again, as the two of them danced, while Richoc watched them every so often. As the music wound down, something started to occur to me, and I set the communicator to go off again. Excusing myself when it rang, I stayed a few tables away and muttered into the mouthpiece, while watching what happened.

Inara and Barret came back to the table. Richoc immediately led Barret away for something else - looked like they were going away to watch an acrobatic group performing outside the storefront. Alone at the table, Inara... pulled out two data pens and a copier, and started to discretely put them into use, not realizing that she was being covertly observed by me.

Lords of Sihnon above! Inara was... she'd gotten to my target ahead of me. She'd purloined the data pen while dancing with Barret, and now Richoc was distracting Barret, hoping to keep him from realizing that the pen was temporarily missing, and preventing him from happening upon Inara as she did the dirty deed. They had to be in it together. And from the questions they'd been asking - they were hoping to grab something at the circus. Had to be the Dubnium - Barret's team wasn't concerning themselves with anything else.

But - but I was on to them, and I didn't think that Inara suspected me. And I knew that if Mal's plan went off right, he'd get the grain while Inara and Richoc were still waiting for it to arrive. I could still get all this to work!

I had to time my move carefully, and wait until *just* after the copy was done. "Hey, Inara!" Surprised, she immediately stashed the pens and the copier underneath her napkin - I hardly even saw it move. Nice and smooth. "That was Melany - she's going to be here in a few minutes."

Okay, there it was. I had to believe that Melany's arrival would change the whole situation. (It was the best thing I could come up with on the moment.) She had to warn Richoc, and she needed to get Barret's pen back to him as soon as possible. But... but I thought that she wouldn't try to take the whole bundle, it'd be noticed too much. Yes, there she went, I couldn't see anything in her hand, but the bundle of the copier could still sort of make out beneath the cloth napkin. I nodded when she excused herself, held my breath, and looked. Yes. I grabbed the data pen and immediately headed for the back door. They'd HAVE to know that I'd taken it, and I didn't want to stick around and give either of them a chance to take it back. Maybe Barret still wouldn't realize anything was odd, even with my disappearance and Melany's failure to show up. As I hurried down the alleyway, I wondered if Inara would make a second try to copy the original pen.

-----------

I stayed in the ship the rest of the day, actually tinkering with the engines because it made me feel better. Nobody had asked about how I'd gotten the info and the pen, (which wasn't even the same color as the one I'd been given to make MY copy on, so I couldn't have swapped them.) And I decided not to mention Inara or warn the crew that there might be another pair of thieves after the same prize as them.

I'm not sure why I was silent this time. I'd only just met Inara yesterday, and though I'd liked her in the way you sometimes like a stranger, that was different from the kind of loyalty I'd usually need to cover for her. Maybe I just didn't want to mention yet more unexpected info about this particular caper.

Why had Inara been involved? Was this really what Richoc had 'hired' her for, as an accomplice thief more than a paramour? Was she really... no, I had to believe that if she hadn't really been in the Guild, Barret and Melany would have known. But... just what sort of things did Guild companions hire out for?

I felt a little disappointed about missing the circus after all the buildup, but there was really no good way to make sure I'd be safely aboard Serenity when the time came to lift off other than to stay here from the start. And I was pretty sure that the planned fireworks, at least, would be a washout.

Wash got in around 2015, and immediately called me to help him warm up the engines and check that Serenity was all set for a quick liftoff.

"Was there trouble?" I called back over the intercom once things looked to be mostly ready. I'd managed to gather that Wash's part in the plan had been played out in the Cortex room of a contact they had here on Paquin, that he'd used the codes from the data pen to get into Barret's system, monitoring the movement of the target parcel that way, and staying in touch with Mal and Zoe through scrambled communicators. When the key moment had come, he was supposed to use the illicit access to sow confusion among Barret's security people, and then kill the whole system for as long as he could manage. I'd have liked to join in on that stuff, but Mal had pointed out that they'd already risked some by introducing Wash to the contact - his face could be described to the authorities if the interference was traced that far. There wasn't any reason to risk my good name as well, and I had reluctantly agreed to that.

"A bit of excitement, yeah," Wash agreed softly. "Your foaf Barret changed the plan around a bit, so maybe he suspected that you'd been questioning him. Nothing too bad, not when I could overhear him through his own system. Mal and Zoe weren't caught well out of position, is the main thing. But after they'd got it... this dark guy tried to snag the box with a retractable grapple of some sort, and nearly got away with it. Zoe - she shot him, and I don't really know more, except that they're almost back now."

"Okay, well... better than either her or Mal getting shot," I put in, and Wash sort of grunted in agreement.

And it was only a few minutes later that I heard a door signal. "Must be them," I said. "Wonder why they didn't code themselves in."

"Check it first," Wash warned, and that made me rethink things. Sure enough, when I checked the monitor, it wasn't our good captain and first mate, but two unfamiliar men in dark purple uniforms.

"What's going on?" I asked through the outside intercom, even though I had a good guess.

"Athens Altar security, ma'am. We are in pursuit of a fugitive from the law, and we have reason to believe he might have stowed away aboard this ship."

Oh, yeah RIGHT. But what could I do about this? Mal and Zoe *would* be getting back soon, and I wasn't sure that they would be on the bounce enough to deal with these guys themselves. And the only things that I could think of as possible weapons or traps to use against them were here inside the ship. Let them in? But if I didn't do something else SOON, they'd be trying to force their way in.

There was a faint zinging sound, and I realized that both of the men on the monitor were reacting to something else. One of them had blood tricking from his head, but it appeared to be only a glancing shot. A flesh wound in the head from a rifle? Well, I suppose that anything was possible. Felt a little guilty about relaxing somewhat. Someone else was dealing with them. I just hoped that it was Mal and Zoe, not Richoc.

It was. The other guard was shot much more seriously, and I opened the door just when Mal signaled me so that the two of them could slip in with the little box that presumably held a single grain of Dubnium. I didn't even think to ask either of them before calling out, "They're on board, Wash! Hit it!!" The door hadn't closed before we rose into the air, and the surviving Athens guard shot through into the cargo bay, but he didn't hit anybody, and we flew away.

"Well, not too bad an escapade," Mal muttered, and I realized that he was bleeding a little again - not a gunshot this time, but a slice on his jaw like he'd been slashed with a pocket knife. Zoe was limping and holding one hand to her body near the waist.

"You're both hurt," I pointed out. "Should we land somewhere to get you patched up, like before?"

"Not a chance," Mal said. "Neither of us are too bad, and there'll be someone following before too long. Speaking of..."

"Yeah, boss," Wash's voice came from a nearby grille, and I realized that maybe I hadn't even had to shout for him. "We've already got a little Spirene class cruiser lifting off from the field - might just be going our way, or she might have something to say to - well, to all of us I guess. And there's a few Alliance boys up in higher orbit that I don't like the look of."

"You can get us through, Wash?" Zoe asked, confidently.

"You hired yourself the best pilot on this side of the 'Verse, darling. I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar."

"Whatever that means," Mal grumbled.

"But... but we can't have them following us the whole way," I muttered. "And we can't outrun them, if it comes to that, can we?"

"Not to worry, Kaylee," Wash replied. "Once we're well out of orbit, I'll head off on a different course, and we'll go down to minimum power. It'll be hard enough for them to calculate just what our heading is and trace it over a few hours. Then we do a few adjustment burns - they won't spot us from the energy we use, and we slide over to a trajectory that they won't be looking for us on."

"Great," Mal said, smiling weakly.

"Shiny," I agreed. "Come on, Zoe - let's get you to the infirmary. Just how bad is that hit below your stomach?"

-----------

In an hour, it was pretty clear that we were all going to be okay, though I still didn't like the idea of Mal and Zoe getting into such dangerous situations without a better medic aboard. Zoe was the best of us, on account of having advanced army first aid training, but there was only so far her experience could go when she was the one who'd been shot.

But we'd patched her up, and I'd sewn Mal up following her directions, and Wash had reported in that he didn't see anyone following us.

"What about someone using the same tricks as us?" I asked, when I came up to visit him in the cockpit. "Powering down, trying to stay hidden?"

"But why would they hide if they're the ones chasing us?" Wash asked, but after only a moment the obvious answer occurred to him. "Because as long as we can see them on our tail, we'll keep making evasive maneuvers, and one of them may actually let us lose ourselves. If we don't realize... well, I'll keep pulling a few little surprises anyway."

"Sounds good," I said, smiling. "Listen, I... I'm going to tell Mal and Zoe this too - there was another guy having lunch with Barret when I found him - asking questions and so on. I think that he might have been the one who tried to snatch the prize - and who cut on Mal." He'd already confirmed that he'd gotten the knife wound from the 'mysterious dark stranger.' "I should have said something about that before, huh?"

"Maybe," Wash said. "Not sure if it makes a big difference."

------------

Mal confirmed the idea that my latest evasion had been negligible, though he did insist that I should tell him anything I knew that could be important for a job, and that he'd think of something I could do if he was being too stubborn to listen. I still didn't bring up Inara or her involvement to any of them, for what reasons I couldn't say.

"Okay, so where are we off to next?" I asked. "Anywhere exciting?"

"Ezra ain't no pleasure palace world, but it ain't too bad," Mal muttered. "We'll have work there, is the important thing. Just hope that the little tyrant running the landing control station has mellowed out a bit - or that you've found a regulation in the manual text that'll help us out, Wash."

"No, not yet, though we'll probably find something," Wash said, not sounding too eager or certain.

"Landing regulations?" I asked, uncertain.

"A lot of places try to deny suspected lowlifes and smugglers out of their ports," Mal explained with a grin. "But the Alliance being what it is, they generally can't just say 'Oh, I don't like your haircut Mal' and deny the clearance. They have to publish the rules that they use to make the distinctions, and so if we can find a loophole in the rules we can get down - until they close the loop, that is." He sighed. "What I'd give for some qualification that would let us go anywhere at all, no matter what they tried - a regulation that they couldn't change."

"Oh, you know the only one of those that I've ever found," Wash shot back. "You just don't want to go through with it."

"I *can't* use that trick just for wanting it," Mal shot back, though he sounded a bit pleased over the fact.

"Wait a second, what am I missing?" I asked. "What's the trick?"

"Companion passenger," Wash explained. "Companion's guild has huge pull over the whole 'verse, and they DON'T like not being able to make their appointments. So just about anywhere, if there's a Companion aboard, you'll be able to land no matter what the other regulations say."

"Even if she doesn't have an appointment?" I asked.

Wash nodded. "I don't think I've seen one that limits the kind of business a Companion might need to have on their world - it's blanket privilege."

"But by the same token, what Companion would ever book extended passage on a ship like this?" Mal asked uncertainly.

"You could rent out that shuttle to a one, maybe," I suggested. "Would that count for the regulations? Then she'd have a bit of her own mobility as well as transport between far worlds."

"Maybe, yeah," Wash said. "I'm not sure how subleasing short-range shuttles is generally treated - we've never had a renter."

"Still would never happen," Mal insisted, but he sounded a bit less definite than before. Of course, it probably wouldn't ever come to anything. I had no idea where Inara was headed, and even if we did meet up again, she'd probably know that I'd swiped her data pen. Maybe she'd even clue in that I knew the people who had beaten Richoc to the Dubnium. Or if that were just a business deal for her, would she hold it against me? Did she get bonus pay for a successful theft?

------------

Given how energetic and vigorous she usually was, it shouldn't have surprised me so much that Zoe bounced back pretty quickly from the two bullet holes that she'd taken from Paquin guards. As we sped off silently through the black towards our next destination, the lights were usually dim or off and all ship's systems were kept to minimal use, so as to make us as faint a target as possible for anybody coming space for us. The whole business was no end of creepy.

I did notice a definite shift in Zoe's attitude towards Wash during this time, a marked improvement from the sort of weary disdain she'd treated him with around the time that I first signed on. Maybe Wash's performance during the heist, even if he'd been back at the contact's house instead of out in the field of real danger, had impressed her somewhat. And Wash could definitely sense the thaw too, and was enjoying it probably a bit out of proportion. Took me a while to figure out that one, and then it came together - Wash was sweet on Zoe, had been for a while, and even the cheerfulness I'd known before had been him bearing up stoically under the weight of her obvious, silent disapproval.

I wondered what would happen next between the two of them, but felt it was definitely best not to meddle this time. Read some; Mal had quite a collection of old fantasy soft backs and graphic novels - Slayer 3000, Angel of the night, Z warriors and that kind of thing. (Wished that I'd managed to get Firefly transport manuals in printed form, so that I could pore over them while the Cortex was offline.)

And of course, there were more games with the rest of the crew, double-up, and chore poker, (for there were ALWAYS chores to take care of on a ship like anywhere else, and gambling them seemed to make the necessity less onerous.) But still, there were times that the others weren't available - with Wash carefully watching Serenity's controls, Mal and Zoe together discussing their strategy for meeting the client or buyer, (I wasn't quite clear on which, or if they were two different people,) once we got to where we were going. As I prowled through the dim or unlit corridors, I started to wish that there were someone my own age, (or younger,) who I could have fun with. As juvenile as it sounded, Serenity could be a great setting for hide and seek.

On the fourth day out from Paquin, we had our closest scare. Not from any ship that could possibly have been following us, but an Alliance patrol destroyer that might have gotten the warning to search for a ship of thieves on their way from Paquin to Ezra. Wash had me cut all of the ship's power, including the life support and the lights, and Zoe came to fetch me up to the cockpit with a little battery-powered flash so that I could see what was going on, and be with the others as they watched.

"How close are we going to come, Wash?" Mal asked after about a moment.

Wash actually drew a few diagrams and did some figuring on a slider stick. "I make it something like twenty miles."

"That doesn't sound so bad," I muttered, but then wondered if I sounded like a naive landlubber. Distances were different in space, and if...

"It's not horrible," Zoe muttered. "Not like there's any danger of bumping into them, or of someone looking out a porthole and spotting us I think. But we'll be showing up on their radar clear enough, and just strongly enough that somebody might get suspicious. Radar won't say for sure that we're not a lump of rock whizzing its way by, but if they care enough to try training a telescope on the co-ordinates that the radar reports, they'd probably see that our shape is too regular, that we have to be a man-made object."

"Uh-oh," I muttered.

"The better news," Wash put in, "is that we happen to more or less fit in with a loosely spread cluster of fairly reflective, metal-ore asteroids that are big enough to be ships of one sort or another. I know this, because I was bored enough to check most of them to be sure that they weren't really ships following us."

"Wait a second," Mal put in. "We don't have our radar on, so how did YOU find these rocks?"

"Mostly echoes off other people's radar, including the Alliance ship before I realized what it was," Wash said. "The point is, I don't expect that even an Alliance crew will keep checking each and every radar signal when most of them are natural objects."

"No," Zoe said a little uncertainly. "Not unless they REALLY wanted us... which I don't think they would, just for the Dubnium."

"Still, we need to be ready to take an evasive if on the off chance we do get spotted," Mal said. "Which suggests that somebody should be back in the engine room."

"I'll do it," I said. "My job. You can just holler to turn it on if need be."

"You don't have to be back there all alone," Mal said. "Now that I know what the score is, no reason the rest of us need to stay here in the front together."

"You'd keep me company?" I said, charmed at the gesture. After a few quick words to Zoe, he took the light and offered it to me.

"So, umm..." I wanted to ask the captain something about himself, but wasn't sure what. All I knew about his past was a bit about the war, and somehow I didn't feel brave enough to ask about that. "Where did you grow up, yourself?"

"Shadow," he said simply enough. "Momma and my uncle owned a cattle ranch."

"Ohh." Shadow had been destroyed in the war. I had heard that from my father back home. It was the only inhabited world that had ever been devastated so much. Nobody could live there now. Had Mal Reynolds already been off fighting in some other battle when his homeland had been blasted, or had he lived through those times, been evacuated by some other Independent world, and joined up for the army in search of payback?

"Don't feel so bad for bringing it up," Mal said, but he didn't volunteer anything else or tell me that I could ask further. "What about you, what's your family like, Kaylee? Do you miss them much?"

"Not as much as you'd think," I replied truly, because more and more I was starting to feel that he, Zoe, and Wash were just as much family to me as the ones who I had grown up with. "Let's see... Mama's a sweet lady, but stern too. You'd like her, maybe..."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	4. Chapter 4

Week Four

I was in the engine room, tinkering idly with a replacement torque manifold that I'd need to be installing as soon as we landed on Ezra, when Mal's voice came on the intercom. "Kaylee, you've got a wave coming in."

I blinked with surprise, since I knew that we weren't supposed to be using the Cortex much, but didn't ask. "Okay, Captain, I'll take it in here."

But he didn't route the wave back to the terminal above my hammock yet. "Kaylee, do you happen to know HOW you have a wave coming in, when we're using a fake Cortex ID that nobody but Wash and I are supposed to know?"

"Not even Zoe?" I asked.

"Not really the point."

"Okay, then no. I have no idea how I have a wave coming in under those circumstances," I admitted. Was it Melany again? No, she couldn't have managed something like this, I was sure. Or even Barret, though maybe somebody Barret could have hired to...

"Well, I'll send it down in a second. Talk to him QUICK, and get off as soon as he's satisfied. Every time we try to adjust our connection path, he's back in our virtual face in fifteen seconds or a minute, and he keeps saying that he won't let up until we let him talk to you."

I stifled a giggle of amusement at how much that attitude seemed to annoy my Captain. "Right, whoever it is, I'll give them the quick brush-off."

He relented for a moment. "Not the brush-off, quite. I think that he's just a bit worried. Reassurance is called for here, or we might get even more trouble later on." And before I could ask about that, the cortex screen brightened, doing that moving circular arc deal for a few seconds before a video image showed up.

"Davison!" I exclaimed, surprised and a bit pleased. He was my second brother up in order of age, not exactly my favorite, but we usually got on well, and if there was anyone in the family with the Cortex-fu and other various electronic skills to track us down when Wash was trying to keep Serenity mostly hidden, then it'd have to be Davison. "Good to see you, but I can't talk for long... we're approaching a landing, and I've got a lot of work to do."

Davison paused, and then nodded. "Alright. I... I'm sorry if I was being a pest with your boss, but I... nobody's heard from you in a while, even Mother, and - and I was getting worried. You're all right?"

"Yes, I'm doing great," I insisted. "Happy as a hare munching on spinach, or something like that."

"What's it like, working on a little ship like that?" he asked.

That threw me for a moment. Could I possibly explain the Firefly experience to him in just a few sentences - the loneliness of trips through empty space, the terror of trying to patch Mal and Zoe up from gunshots, the bizarreness of scheming against a man as rich and powerful as Barret Thomas? "It's hard work, but great... the rest of the crew are shiny people, especially Captain Reynolds. It's just that right now..."

"Okay, I get you," Davison muttered, and I wondered if he'd been able to tell that I wasn't giving up the whole truth. "I'll tell Mom and Dad and everyone that you're all fine."

"Yeah, do that." And I remembered something. "Especially Sherice. How's things between the two of you?"

"Oh, didn't Mama mention it last time you waved her?" Davison grinned. "We've set a date - late in the holiday season this year."

"Oh, wow, no, this is the first I've heard," I said.

"Do you think that you'll be able to get back here for the ceremony?"

I hesitated. Mal had mentioned that though he didn't mind my taking a bit of time if our schedule happened to go back by Three Hills, he didn't want the itinerary to be dictated by anything but work, including passenger requests. As crew, I didn't have the right to suggest where we went and where, and I understood that. Even Mal didn't set the course for personal reasons, only for what we needed to keep flying. "I'm not sure. I'll try, and I'll definitely wave you back once I know for sure."

"Alright, I'd better go and sign off now. Keep well, Kaylee."

"You too." And then the Cortex screen went back to standby. I sighed and picked the manifold back up, trying to remember what I needed to do next with it.

------------

"Okay, the big man is Adelai Niska," Mal told us that night at dinner, or maybe told me, because I thought that Wash and Zoe already knew this stuff. "Got his fingers into a lot of stuff, very rich, got family around most of the Rim. Lives up in a Skyplex above Ezra, but we're not going to meet him directly, and for the time being I think I'm glad of that. I've heard... well, he's someone that we don't want to offend."

"And offending clients is something of a habit with you, one could say sir," Zoe said, somehow letting only a slight hint of laughter color her outwardly respectful tone of voice as she said that.

"Umm, I have more of a talent for that than I'd like, yes," Mal admitted uncomfortably. "We'll be landing outside of Cara Dawn, a small city, and the landing visas have been arranged. Niska's people helped with that, and the stated reason for our visit is that we'll be taking on passengers."

"Do we have passengers lined up, sir?" Zoe asked.

"I've got a lead," Mal said. "Nothing certain, but I think it should work out. A group of seven, or so it was said, which would... strain our accommodations somewhat."

"Yeah," Wash agreed.

"These people won't be expecting premium staterooms," Mal continued evenly. "But they need to get to Dyton colony quickly, and we're their best bet."

"Maybe we should have Wash and Kaylee go chase down this lead of yours, sir," Zoe suggested. "They're both somewhat on the... inviting and personable side."

"What, are you saying that I'm not inviting and personable?" Mal joked. "Aww, it's a good enough idea anyway. You and I need to be the ones to go and meet Niska's representative."

"And hand over the Dubnium?" I said.

"Yep," Zoe agreed. "And show him the loot we got from Patience. Niska expressed an interest in purchasing the lot, but his offer isn't firm until this guy appraises them directly."

"So, you're up with shilling for us?" Mal asked, turning to me. "Don't think these people would give you no trouble, just get them to agree to no less than five thousand."

I blinked slightly. "Each?"

Wash had to laugh at that. "No, total."

"Oh, okay. And what's a shill?"

Mal chuckled himself. "Only one so innocent... a barker, a canvasser. Like the ones back at... oh, you weren't at the circus in full swing back on Paquin, but..."

"A hawker," I said, seeing it. "Well, I never done a sales pitch before, but I can sure give it a try."

"I think that when it comes to selling people on Serenity, you'll be a natural, Kaylee," Wash said with a smile. "What's our contact info, Mal?" Mal started scribbling something out on a little piece of paper for us.

"Okay," I said, after a moment. "And you guys take care with this contact, right. Nobody get shot?"

"If anybody does, it won't be us," Mal said meaningfully. I rolled my eyes just a little.

-----------

"Yes, of course fifty-nine hundred will be suitable," the older man said, almost surprising me enough that I had to blink. (Well, maybe I *did* blink, but not obviously.) "But we'll need to leave as soon as possible. I and mine can be ready to depart by 0900 in the morning."

I shot Wash a slight look - Mal hadn't briefed me on this kind of negotiation. "We have other business that might keep us here in Cara Dawn for... for as much as three days."

"Nonsense. We'd have to go within forty-eight hours at the very latest."

"How about a guaranteed departure at or before 1500 on the 18th?" Wash fired back.

"That's nearly two and a half..."

"Fifty-six hundred," Wash interrupted.

He got a somewhat dirty look for that. "Fifty-five hundred," was the counteroffer.

"Deal."

Now the negotiator for the other side seemed like he wished he hadn't settled so much, but after a look at the rest of the group, he had no way to reconsider. "Deal. You can message us if there's any advancing of the departure time."

"Excuse me, miss." This was one of the group who'd be going, a lanky teenage boy who was cute but probably too young for me to be gettin' any thoughts about. "How much luggage can we pack?"

I hesitated and looked at Wash, not sure if I could trust my instincts here. "Serenity has plenty of space for carrying, son," he said with a bit of a smile. "Just about anything you can get to the spaceport in that truck we saw outside and carry up the ramp, we'll find a place for." After a moment, he thought of one qualification. "But the captain wouldn't take a liking to live pets, I think."

"No, he needn't be concerned about such things," Mother Winfield said seriously. "We didn't have any pets except for the bulldog, and -- and he's been given to another good home." She sighed. "But - I want to speak with the captain before we make our payment, it just seems sensible."

"Yeah," someone else chimed in, I wasn't quite sure who.

"I'm sure that can be arranged," Wash said, smiling genially. "He's just busy, so wanted to send us on ahead to make sure that we had an agreement in principle."

"Yeah, the captain's a swell guy," I chimed in, feeling that I needed to contribute something other than standing here and supposedly looking pretty. "You'll love him, he'll love you - it'll all be great."

So things were settled for the time being - Father Winfield insisted on giving Wash a small deposit to 'guarantee their berths' no matter what his better half had said about meeting the Captain, and I answered a few questions about what traveling on a Firefly was like. Our 'up to seven' passengers had turned out to be a family unit: father, mother, aunt, (being the mother's younger sister,) a daughter and two sons, and the daughter's husband. All of them had an accent that I hadn't been able to place, but Wash told me later it was 'British' and might mean that they'd come from Dyton Colony or Londinium or a few other places where lots of the people talked that way.

"So what's next?" I asked as we left the Winfield's. "Mal and Zoe said that they likely wouldn't be done with Niska's guy for a few hours."

"Now, we go part hunting," Wash said. "You've come up with a list of components and tools that Serenity needed to get fixed up proper?"

"Ooh, right!" I said, remembering. "How much money do we have to shop with?"

"Ehh, not enough to get us much at the better places," Wash admitted. "I don't think that we should be using the Winfield's deposit on that, just in case. But we can try a few scrounging spots or discount markets, and see if we can pick up at least a few decent items."

"Scrounging spots?"

"Ehh... you'll see," Wash told me.

-------------

'Scrounging spots' were junkyards, in case you haven't guessed.

Actually, it wasn't as bad as I'd expected, wandering through them and sorting through the wrecks. People tossed out all kinds of stuff that could be fixed so easily, really, and two of the three yards we visited were reasonably clean and well organized. We found a lot of the items on my list, though I wasn't sure about the compression coil catalyzer. Well, we'd see if it holds up okay.

When we'd only just started on the third, (and easily the messiest) junk lot, Wash got a call on his portable communicator wand, which turned out to be from Zoe. After stepping away to hold the talk with her, (like there might have been something that I shouldn't hear?) he came back and said that they were finally finished with the meeting, and Zoe had suggested meeting for a bite at a cheap restaurant near where we were.

"Okay," I muttered, and rubbed at grime that seemed much nastier than decent engine grease. "Can we go somewhere to get a bit cleaned up first?"

Wash chuckled. "Well, I *guess* so."

He took longer at the community Privacy than I did, and looked very spiffy as we came up to the restaurant - certainly he was the only person there who was so dressed up. Mal and Zoe had already ordered a big salami and pepper pie by the time we got there, and we told them about the Winfields, the negotiation about departure time, and the gear for Serenity that we'd managed to scavenge.

"Hmm -- okay, well, I guess it's good that you managed to get us this much time," Mal said softly.

"Why, is something wrong?" I asked. "Will we need to stay here long?"

"They paid off quick enough on the Dubnium, but the guy lowballed us on the jewelry and then asked for a chance to do further assays on it," Zoe said. "It'd be good to get the money now, and this is the best place to make the sale in some ways, but... if he's clued in that the Winfields are pushing to leave soon, then Niska will probably try dragging things out as a negotiating tactic."

"Well, we'll just have to play hardball back," Mal countered. "He wants them just as much as we want the money, after all."

"Yeah I guess." Zoe sighed. "Well, we can finish getting what the engine will need, and maybe catch up on some news. Niska had a job for us to start over when we get to Dyton colony too, and it'll take us over to Persephone, which will be fun."

"Yeah," Wash agreed. "I'd like to tag along, if you've got anyone particular you want to make contact with here, Zoe. See that side of the... business."

Zoe smiled just a little. "I think that that could be arranged, yes."

"And I guess that means I take over with the junkyards and flea markets, Kaylee," Mal said, rubbing his hands slightly as the food was placed in front of us. "Not as much of an old hand as Wash is, but I helped Bester put Serenity to rights after it was first bought... or as near to rights as she got with him, and I think I know how to pitch in."

I tried not to groan. Mal might have some experience with this, and he loved Serenity as much as any of us did, but I had already seen what Bester had warned me about, that Mal Reynolds also had a tightwad streak in him, and wouldn't be easy on the purse strings when it came to getting what I said that we'd need.

But that was a worry for another time, probably another day. We finished off an excellent if not fancy dinner, and then there was a sort of a free concert in the town square that we stayed to listen to. Even danced with a fellow who reminded me a bit of the not-too-young Winfield son, though it wasn't him of course. When we finally got home to the ship, I was feeling very positive about staying on Ezra for a few days, and then leaving with the Winfields.

------------

I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Inara Serra at the street Bazaar again. Especially because Mal had taken off to deal with a call from the Niska people. "You... hello," I managed to choke out. "It's not a co-incidence that we're both on this world, is it?"

"No," Inara admitted.

"Is Richoc here too?" I asked. "I... I like you, but my loyalty is to my crew. And - and we've already sold off the - what you were looking for back on Paquin."

"Relax, Miss Frye," Inara said calmly, picking up a rotor seal and peering at it a bit quizzically. "Richoc is on his way back to Ariel, a bit disappointed, but what happened back on Paquin is business as usual in the field that he's in. And as for myself... my contract with him is ended now. What we were looking for there is ancient history, as far as I'm concerned."

"So you were hired out to help him steal it," I whispered, feeling like I had to know. "Instead of... what Companions are usually contracted for."

She smiled just a little. "Yes, that's right. I have some... special skills, that come with higher fees to those who wish to avail of them, as well as the more usual amenities. I... I would consider it a great personal favor if you gave me your word not to tell anybody else that you figured out I do that sort of contract. It could cause no end of problems for me, even possibly endanger my life."

"Well..." I hesitated. "I'll agree to that, but only if you answer some of my questions. If the answers to those are secrets, then I'll keep those too."

"Very well, ask what you will."

Of course, my mind blanked out. "Umm... exactly why DID you come to Ezra if you weren't following... us, or trying to beat us to the buyer?"

"Umm... I'm not sure if I can explain it," Inara admitted uncomfortably. "Richoc *did* say that the man who wanted to buy the Dubnium was here, or in the Skyplex up there, and that if he managed to poach it, he'd be coming here to sell it. I... I guess it just seemed like an interesting place to come next, and a promising venue for some inquiries that... that if you don't mind, I'll reserve on personal privilege for the time being." She looked at me. "And, well... for some strange reason, I did want to see you again. Our meeting HERE in this place is not co-incidental. I went through the spaceport registry for Serenity's serial number, followed you and your captain when you left this morning, and moved in to talk to you as soon as he seemed to be out of the way for long enough."

"I... I'm not quite sure what to say to that," I mumbled, and then, something occurred to me in an odd flash. "Do - would you want to travel aboard a ship like Serenity for a while? Like, sub-renting one of our shuttles, so that you could take little side trips and see clients, but dockin' on board for the longer trips between worlds?"

"I... I guess that could have advantages for the sort of business I have out here, yes," Inara admitted, surprised by the idea. "Why me, though? You hardly know me, and our meeting back on Paquin was hardly conducive to an atmosphere of trust." She sighed. "I really shouldn't have left that data pen for you to swipe, but I didn't realize that you knew what it was for."

"Of such mistakes are heists won and lost," I snickered. "But the reason why, is... they've been having problems landing places, or we have, I should say. Because we fit the profile of troublemakers and smugglers. But with a companion on board, even if she has her own shuttle..."

"You can take advantage of Guild regulations to go just about anywhere," Inara breathed, seeing it. "Alright. Will you ask Mal about it?"

"And have to explain where I know you from, and why I trust you?" I snickered slightly. "No, it'd probably be better if you made an appointment or came up to him yourself, without bringing me into it. Is that alright?"

"Yes, quite acceptable. Thank you for the lead. And -- assuming that my negotiations with mister Reynolds end successfully... come by the shuttle door any time that I'm not actually at work with a client. We have much more to talk about." Inara winked and headed off, then.

"Umm, bye," I muttered, caught by surprise at how quickly she had ended the conversation and left the scene. Then again, now that we had come to an understanding, that would hopefully lead to meeting again less suspiciously, maybe she didn't want to risk Mal coming back and spotting her, which could mess up her chances later. I went back to hunting for a decent thermostatic regulator, and sure enough, a few minutes later, Mal showed up and asked me how it was going. Just then I pulled a thermostatic out from under a pile of rusted struts.

------------

"Zoe, Wash, Kaylee - this is Companion Inara Serra," Mal said a bit stiffly, and Inara leaned forward to shake our hands each in turn, not glancing at me once until she'd finished greeting Wash. Definitely she would be able to keep up this act better than I would. Hopefully soon enough the fact that we'd met before was something that I wouldn't be likely to give away accidentally. "She's expressed an interest in renting out shuttle one, and I think that we've pretty much come to terms. There will be some adjustments that we'll all need to make with Inara coming aboard, but she has a lot to offer and I hope that you'll all do your best to comply with her requests. Miz Serra?"

"Um, thank you, Captain," she said. "First off, there's the question of making and keeping my appointments. Mal has assured me that he'll keep this consideration in mind while making and revising the ship's itinerary as a point of policy, but... Wash, you're the pilot, yes?" Wash nodded.

"Sorry, it must have slipped my mind to do the introductions the other way," Mal said, shaking his head. "Inara - Zoe Alleyne, my first mate. Hoban Washburne, a fine pilot, and Kaywinnit Lee Frye, our mechanic and chief engineer."

I could see Wash bristling at the way Mal had given his full name - this was the first time I'd actually found it out. I shrugged the whole thing off myself, knowing that Mal was trying to be very formal in front of Inara. "Very good," Inara said, inclining her head and making a formal courtesy. "Mister Washburne..."

"Please, just Wash," Wash insisted. "Everybody should call me just that."

"Wash," Inara repeated, as if trying to school herself to use just that one syllable. "I suspect that we'll need to work closely in terms of flight times and so on."

"Yes, certainly," Wash said. "You're familiar with the controls of the Diamondstar shuttles?"

"I'm an accomplished pilot," she said matter-of-factly. "Not in league with you, I suppose, though I haven't heard of you before Captain Reynolds started raving..."

"Where did you study?"

"The Guild temple of the Great City of Sihnon ran its own courses in such things," Inara explained. "The senior instructor was named Charles Relis - perhaps you know the name?"

"Yes, actually, he's legendary," Wash admitted. "Didn't realize he did teaching for... private groups." Inara shrugged slightly. "Well, if he passed you with a favorable grade, then I don't think I need to worry about you handling one of these shuttles."

"Very good," Inara said. "And -- not that I intend to be standoffish, but I would request that nobody should enter my shuttle without permission. I do require privacy at certain times, for meditation and simply as a question of peace of mind."

"Certainly," Zoe said. "I won't disturb you. We can work out a system that you can use to let us know if you don't want to be disturbed for routine matters, such as being called to the dinner table or whatever."

"It would be appreciated," Inara said formally, and turned to me, as if expecting me to actually say something to her.

"Welcome aboard Serenity," I said, reaching out my hand to hers again. "It'll be good to have someone else along for the trip."

"Oh, that reminds me," Wash said. "Is this arrangement just for a particular trip, or a certain time frame, or..."

"No, I'll be traveling with you until further notice," Inara said. "The arrangement will be on a trial basis to start with I suppose, but I see no reason to put arbitrary limits on our understanding."

"Alright," Zoe said. "How about dinner, to celebrate our new understanding? We've got nothing special waiting in the kitchen, but..."

"Yes, I'd be delighted," Inara said. "When's our departure time? I do have certain affairs to conclude here on Ezra, and believe I will also have to do some shopping to outfit the shuttle appropriately for my needs."

"Fifteen-hundred hours local, day after tomorrow," Mal muttered. I wondered if the jewelry negotiations were going badly, as we filed up the stairs.

-------------

This time, I got to the bar second, and I recognized the person who I was meeting. I'd known who it would be from the start, as well. "Nice to see you again, John."

"Jonny, please," he said, flashing me a sweet grin with just one of his front teeth crooked. "And thanks for coming."

"I'm not at all sure that I should really be here," I muttered just loud enough for him to hear, as I took my seat. It wasn't usually like me to play it so coy with a fella... but then, all of my previous experience had been back around home - or at least touring around my home planet with Barret and Melany. Both situations where I had to admit that I felt more at ease than I did right now, sitting in an unfamiliar bar on a moon that I'd only been on for two days or so, with a charming young man who was going to be one of our passengers for the trip to Dyton Colony.

"Why not?" Jonny said, leaning over the table slightly and cocking his head.

"I... I don't know anything about you, except that your family needs to get over to Dyton pretty quickly," I said. "I... I know what I can see, and I liked that from the first -- was a time when I was back home when I wouldn't have needed much more to convince me. But I've seen a lot of the 'Verse since then, and --"

"And it's just different, meeting somebody new when you're away from home, from safe territory," Jonny filled in. "At least, I think so."

"Oh, have you been away from home too?" I blurted out, and then caught myself. "Or is Ezra not 'home' for you either??"

He laughed. "I... I guess it is now, for a few days more. But not for a long time - I grew up on Dyton, and we moved here because Father got a better job offer. Auntie Stella, too. That was a while ago - I was only Derek's age, and Cathy was a bossy nineteen year old..." He shook his head in the memories. "And I have been off-planet since then, for the record - to Paquin for the street play Festival with a group of friends for the shop."

I thought of asking if he'd met a girl on Paquin, but decided I didn't really want to know. "What shop? This someplace you work?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, it's not much. I'm still in school for half days three times a week, and there isn't much work here for a kid who hasn't afforded hydroponics training and doesn't have the animal knack to turn cowboy. Repair work, mostly old ground cars."

My eyes musta gone wide. "You're a mechanic too?"

"Um - yeah, I guess I am, after my fashion." His smile seemed to sparkle. "Once we're boarded, maybe you can show me Serenity's engine room?"

I nearly choked in laughter, thinking of how I'd made a similar proposition to Bester and gotten me into this whole deal in the first place - without the 'after boarding' part, since I hadn't expected to be on Serenity when she left Three Hills. But while I'd been - well, I know that I'd REALLY wanted to see the engines, it hadn't been just a way to flatter Bester or a pretext to spend time with him, something that we could share together. (Of course, I hadn't really *needed* anything like that with him.) For Jonny, I wasn't sure about any of that, but decided after a moment that I didn't really mind.

"I think that that can be arranged," I told him. The waitress came over at this point, and mindful of the tear that I'd gone on with Melany that first night on Paquin, I got a fake limeade, which at least had the virtue of being soft on the noggin, and paid for it myself. "So, aside from sitting here and talking, did you have anything in mind for the evening?"

Jonny half-smiled, and I realized that in between the signals I'd been sending relating to the drink, (which I hadn't meant to make a big deal of, but whatever,) and putting him on the spot, some of his composure and confidence had left him. "This is a nice place to hang out for a little while," he shot back. "I could buy you dinner, as a thank you for your kindness and etcetera. After that... a walking tour of Cara Dawn? With a not-quite-native guide? That is, if you don't have a problem following me around outside. It's a really friendly city, and you shouldn't have anything to worry about - trust me."

I sighed, just slightly. Though I had a few doubts about Jonny, I really was starting to trust him, but somewhere deep down that scared me. *Strange city, unfamiliar guy, remember what you got yourself into last time?* The Bester thing had ended well, but still, I hadn't realized what a dull tool he was until... And then Paquin - again, I couldn't really argue with the results, but going off with Melany so incautiously had led to a few scary moments.

But I liked Jonny's face and his friendly attitude, so I silenced that voice and asked, "So, what's good on the menu?"

-------------

"So, where do we go?" Jonny whispered into my ear, pressing his chest just a little against mine as I leaned back into the building wall, and let his finger trace along the side of my face. "Most of the clan will be back at the homestead - Mama and Aunt Stella at least. What about..."

"The ship?" I muttered, stammering a bit as the hot blood juices flowed through every little bit of my self. "I... I think that Wash or Mal will be on watch, at least." Chuckled just slightly. "And considering that you're lined up to be a passenger, they may ask you for extra fare if I bring you there before your family's supposed to board up."

"Really?" he asked, paling slightly.

"Um, probably no, but... I'm not sure I want any of them to find out that I'm fooling around with a fare in quite this way." Sighed. "And we ain't neither of us got enough bread for a hostel or nothing, I s'pose - at least I'm pretty sure I don't, unless they're on a level with the drinks around here." That got me to thinking. "Surely there's some other way to get a bit of privacy around here, if not perfect comfort. Back home, some kids had ground cars that they could ride in - though that depended on how much cash was on hand, of course, or sometimes I'd sneak boys into my Dad's shop when I knew he'd closed and wouldn't be back to take care of anything..." Of course, there was that one time I'd predicted wrong, but...

Jonny considered this eagerly. "No car of my own. As you saw, the shop here's still open for business, and - well, I think that the place Dad works is locked up now, but I never snuck a copy of the keys or nothin'." I made a little 'aww' sound and kissed him on the cheek, to see if that would have a positive effect on his train of thought.

"Well, there's - umm, there's the old Tucker house," he said, and gave me too wide a grin. "But they say that it's haunted."

"Nuh-uh, no way," I immediately said. "No matter how much I want to be along with you, I am *not* going into the haunted house. I'm just the kind of pretty girl with a dirty mind who never gets out of those videos without gettin' her guts ripped out."

"Oh, come on." The scorn in his voice was actually harsh enough to make me jump. "You don't REALLY believe in bogeymen and haunted houses, do you? You're a trained technologist working on a spaceship, for crying out loud."

"Just because I do all that, work with machines, doesn't mean I believe that what science can prove is the all-in-all. There are more things in the universe than we can dream of..." But rhyming off that did remind me that in general, when people traded stories about fantastic stuff like that, eighty nine times outta ninety they were full of fei-oo. "It's not a Reaver thing, is it?" Mal had mentioned Reavers once, and even though some people said they didn't exist I believed Mal when he said that he'd seen some, even if he didn't explain about the circumstances.

"Think it through," Jonny said. "If there was a Reaver living at a house in town, skulking in the basement or whatever... you think that anybody would still be here if they couldn't pound him flat? One thing that the stories all say about Reavers - they ain't good at laying low for a long time. Have to kill, to feed and for the pleasure of it."

"So do you believe in Reavers?" I asked.

"I'm not sure, but I'm capable of looking at the idea logically. But getting back to the Tucker place... there was an almighty scrap there during the war, or just before. Two Alliance police drafted up a posse of local deputies and tried to take Cole Tucker in alive. Nearly a dozen colorful local characters got ended up there, including Cole and most of his family. After the war, one of the next owners died in an unusual fall from the roof, while he was up fixing some of the bullet holes. That's where the notion of ghosts or a curse comes from, nothing much to it. And why nobody else lives there. But I've been up to Tucker's plenty, and know lots of other kids who have. It's one of those coming of age deals. Nobody's ever got more than one sprained ankle from it." His green eyes fixed on mine. "Are you really that scared to go through it, Miss Frye?"

"Hmm." I sighed. "No, come on, lead the way before I duck out." The idea of it being something that only kids were frightened of was what changed my mind I guess, something that the young people around here went through as a part of growing up.

There wasn't that much scary about the house aside from the story - it was a bit run-down, as you'd expect if it had been left alone for years, but aside from that it reminded me of a few places out in the country back home. Rather than take in the scenery and give myself time to get skeered again, I turned on Jonny the moment we got inside, kissed him hot and felt him get even hotter. There was a couch in the second room we got to, and somehow the two of us managed to land on it next to each other and start helping one another's clothes off.

I was just about down to my scanties that Jonny mighta come up with that stuff about this abandoned house being 'haunted' just to get me to play it this way - to scare me into turning to him for comfort, or something. Wasn't an idea I really liked or admired him for, but also, I was way too lost in hormones to back out now. The stage was set, and the show had to carry on now.

Let's see... just how do I want to write about this? Jonny was definitely good in bed - nothing that impressive physically, handsome and quite big enough, but... there was something about the way he touched me that made me feel safe to push myself further. Even though the couch wasn't really built for the sort of activity we put it through, the atmosphere and buildup pushed us to a quite satisfying session, over and over again. Finally nearly exhausted, we dressed and walked back into town, where he kissed me at the edge of the landing field. I couldn't wait for liftoff to come.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	5. Chapter 5

Weeks Five-Six

I could tell by the feel of Serenity by now that she had lifted off and left Cara Dawn behind us, climbing through the atmosphere of Ezra. Satisfied that the engines were happy, I left the room and up a ladder to the observation porthole set at the top of the ship, next to one of the emergency locks. From this vantage point, I could only see a little bit of ground, more or less behind the ship, but above us, the blue sky was already thinning to black, and I caught sight of a structure hanging up there, still a long way above us - a sort of a spiral disk made out of metal and glass. The Skyplex. I was glad that we hadn't had to dock Serenity there - this time, at least.

But things had gone well for the business on Ezra, at least. The Winfield clan was all aboard, and we'd taken off soon enough to suit them well. Mal and Niska's lackey had finally agreed on a price for the jewelry, and it was enough money to keep us flying for a while, as Mal had said. There was more work coming up, and -- and I was wondering how long it would be before I could sneak off with Jonny Winfield again without anybody noticing me gone.

"Kaylee? Get to the passenger dorms, on the double!" Well, it wouldn't be for a little while I guessed. Hurried down the nearest stairs and aft, wondering what had gotten Zoe so concerned? I wasn't there before my nose started to give me a notion.

"Nothing quite like this has ever happened since I've been on the ship," Zoe complained, indicating the foul smell that seemed to be coming out of the nearest vents. "And our passengers are rightfully displeased," she added in a lower whisper. "Fix it NOW. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Now I was glad that I'd managed to do as much cramming on the various systems of Serenity as I had, because the key points of the life support system flashed up behind my eyes, as it were, and I reviewed them in order of increasing difficulty as Zoe and I worked together to open up the wall panels that would let me get at the actual gear. First, oxygen tanks, mostly just used as a backup if everything else were going fine. If one of them was discharging and had gotten some sort of a taint when it was originally being loaded - but no, all of the tanks that could lead into that vent weren't letting anything out at all, and I didn't think it was likely that they had since we landed on Ezra. I could do sniff tests on each of them if I didn't find an issue with anything else later on, but it would be mostly a waste of time now.

Second - the lithium scrubber. This was more complex, though still essentially a failsafe. Even with new oxygen feeding into the rooms and hallways of Serenity, we'd be in bad shape soon enough if something didn't deal with the stale air that people breathed out. So air was constantly being piped through the scrubbers - big boxes full of water and some chemical stuff that would filter out dioxide - the breathed-out stuff - and join with it to turn into some kind of solid grains, which would settle to the bottom of the box. The air that came out of the scrubbers would be much lower in stale air if not entirely free, and a little indicator would go off on the scrubber when it was low on juice or had built up too much grainy stuff, which was mostly designed to happen at the same time. Then we found somewhere decent to dispose of it and buy a new scrubber - or took it to someone who could flush out the grains and reload it with lithium juice.

I didn't know of anything that might go on in a scrubber to make it produce a bad smell like this, but I tested them directly, passing the air that vented out of them under my nose and whiffing. No, the smell was there, but faint enough that likely that was just the already-smelly air going INTO the scrubbers that I smelled. Okay, last of all, there was the 'ponic box. We didn't have a good enough hydroponic box on Serenity to actually grow anything that we could eat ourselves, but little algae critters were still the best way of turning bad air back into good air on board ship, which kept us from having to have so many scrubbers and air tanks. Every so often some of the grown algae could get harvested out of our tank and sold to somebody who could use them for something - we did that back on Paquin, or Wash did, because I wasn't around for it. But I suppose I should have realized that the big reservoir with living critters in it was the likeliest source of a bad smell. (Certainly there are enough other living critters capable of making stinks.) I tested the outflow of the hydroponic, made a face, and turned to Zoe. "This is it, and -- and I'm not sure what to do beyond pulling the plug on it completely."

Zoe considered for a moment. "What does that mean? After a few hours or so, the tank will be dead, won't it?"

"Yup. Even if we keep the power on, the little things can't live without getting an air feed in, which means that we have to put the air feed out somewhere. But we've got enough scrubbers and air tanks to get to Dyton colony, easy, and probably won't even have to figure out what went wrong with the 'ponics when we get there - just drain the reservoir, clean it, and load it up with a new batch."

"Which will cost enough," Zoe said, nodding. "We could land somewhere else here on Ezra - but how long do you think it would take for a hydroponic tech to figure out what was wrong and set it to rights?"

"I... I don't know," I admitted. "Could be only around fifteen minutes, could be several days."

Zoe considered, and then asked, "What do you think, sir?" It was only then that I realized that she was standing next to an intercom and must have left it turned on. Mal had been listening too.

"Pull it," Mal insisted. "And check all the backup systems to make sure they're in fine shape, Kaylee. Will we be getting better engine efficiency without having to keep the lights in the 'ponic reservoir on?"

"Um, maybe a little, but not much," I said. "It's not a big overhead."

"Oh, well. I'll let Wash know, anyway. We're already for best speed to Dyton." And then Mal clicked off the line and I started getting to work. Disconnecting the vents into and out of the hydroponic reservoir was easy enough, and turning off the power to the lights inside, but checking all of the air tanks and scrubbers all over the ship took me quite a while, and then I was hungry enough to eat a pig or similar sized creature. Too bad all that was up for grabs in the kitchen was protein rations. I knew that we'd taken on some fresh veggies in Cara Dawn, but Mal had probably locked them up somewhere cold instead of letting them be eaten when they were still at their best.

Headed down into my bunk, wondering for a faint moment if Jonny would be waiting for me down there, but of course there was nobody. I collapsed into the mattress and immediately dozed off, and when I started to feel hands sweeping my hair up over my head and lips tracing over the sensitive skin at the back of my neck, I didn't immediately take it for waking up instead of a dream. "Jonny," I moaned, enjoying the moment for whatever it was.

"Yes, I'm here, my sweet lovely," Jonny's voice came into my ear in a richly accented whisper. "You've had a long day of hard work so far, and I don't want to presume anything that you're not up for. How about a muscle rubdown?"

"Hmm -- actually, that sounds great," I said, as strong and gentle hands started to untuck my shirt at the waist and pull it up, gently massaging sore muscles. "But I ain't some dainty, exhausted thing that needs to be done for instead of doing just because there was a lot of work today."

"No, I don't guess that you do," he admitted. "But sometimes it's nice to get taken care of, instead of taking care of other people, isn't it?"

"Well - I guess that I wouldn't know so much about that," I had to admit. "Guess that you'll have to show me how nice it can be, and I'll make up my mind then."

Jonny laughed. "I think that we have a deal."

But even so, I just couldn't lay still long enough to stay in the passive role - I took my own turn after Jonny had stripped me down and rubbed every single part of my skin, trying a kind of tickle-play that I'd learned back when I was only sixteen on Three Hills, which surprised and pleased my new partner quite a bit. When we actually did the deed, I couldn't entirely keep my voice down, and wondered how far people had been able to hear us in the little ship, and who had figured out what they'd been listening to.

When I got back up in the middle of the night, after Jonny had left to sneak into the room he shared with his brother in the stern of the boat, Wash was snoozing behind the controls, but woke up when he heard me coming. "So, are all mechanics such... passionate people, I wonder?" he immediately teased me.

"Um, well, I, uh... couldn't say for sure, but I guess it looks that way," I admitted. "Is it a..."

"Don't worry," Wash immediately assured me. "Nobody's going to criticize you for having a little fun when you've got an agreeable chance - not Mal or Zoe, or me... and I should think our new renter wouldn't have any puritan issues. Whether the boy's family might get a bit upset, I suppose I don't know, but they're just passengers, and we won't have to deal with them for that long."

"Yeah." I chuckled softly. "Suppose that if there was really work to be done and I was screwin' around, Mal would have a different attitude."

"He wouldn't be the only one," Wash agreed. "But that's not you, Kaylee. Bester knew engines nearly as well as you - though you obviously had a few tricks up your sleeve that were new on him. But he was an arrogant and lazy sonnuvabitch, and you're hardworking and humble. You wouldn't let your hormones get in the way when there was something that really needed to be done. I'm sure of that."

"Hmm -- yeah, I guess that you're right," I admitted. "So, what's up with you lately? And Zoe?"

"What makes you think that anything's 'up' with us?" he laughed.

"Oh, don't give me that," I said. "First, back in Cara Dawn, you were off together for just about every free moment - pounding the pavement supposedly, but I'm not sure for what. I was hunting through the salvage yards more or less by myself to get what's needed to keep Serenity flying, and Mal was negotiating to sell a bunch of jewels and getting us a new job for once we get to Dyton colony. So what were the two of you looking for?"

"Hmm -- well, for one thing, Zoe was doing a bit more long range planning. Trying to figure out what opportunities we might have AFTER that new job - who else is offering work, who might be trying to horn in on our jobs, including the new one we'll start on Dyton colony. Who might be willing to shelter us where if something goes sour, and what they'll want in exchange."

"Oh," I said, nodding. "Yeah, that makes sense, but... well, I guess there's more to the crime business than meets the eye."

"Always," Wash agreed.

"And was it *all* business between the two of you?" I pressed. "I've seen a few of the looks that have been going back and forth. Anything more than just looks?"

"I... I refuse to give a full answer to that, on the grounds that Zoe might recriminate me."

Chuckled. "Yeah, okay. Guess that gives me some of a notion, at least... she wouldn't be so upset if there was nothing much to tell." There was a short pause, during which Wash seemed to be unable to stop a wide grin from crossing his face. "Well, congratulations on whatever."

"Thanks, I guess. I... I'll tell you more if I can, later, but - whatever's going on, it's still just starting, and - well, and I think Zoe doesn't want Mal to know yet until she's figured out how to tell him. They have this really intense bond from what they went through in the war, and she hasn't really had a serious relationship with a guy since they've known each other."

"Oh." I thought about that. "So Mal might think that she's betraying or abandoning him when he clues in." Wash shrugged. "I wonder what that was like for them, being in the war."

"Mal mentioned something about it to me, once," Wash said softly. "About the moment he realized that they'd lost Serenity Valley, that things were all over. As the gods of Irony decreed, it happened to be just after he'd completed a daring and dangerous sortie, capturing an enemy machine gun and destroying an Alliance skiff, so that air reinforcements could get in safely. But..."

"But it wasn't *their* air reinforcements that showed up," I said, not sure if I'd heard something about this before or just guessed. Actually, I think that someone back home had told me a bit about the battle, though I hadn't known that Mal had been in it back then of course. "Way too many Alliance airboats for him to ever shoot down."

Wash nodded soberly, and I got up, figuring that the conversation wasn't going to move on any further from here anyhow. "Have a nice nap."

"Thanks," Wash said wryly, and made a big show of stretching his head back over the flight console, though he didn't close his eyes.

I wandered around, not wanting to go back to bed yet myself, and ended up at the shuttle one hatch. Well, why not try? Inara was probably catching up on her beauty sleep, so I picked the quietest and most unobtrusive door signal. It was only a short moment before the hatch slid open, and Inara smiled back at me. She was wearing a simple sort of a pink (?) housedress; very different from the more elegant outfits I'd seen her in so far. "Oh, hello. Were you... meditating or something?"

Inara smiled back. "No, not really, just sitting up and reading actually. I get a spot of insomnia sometimes, and haven't quite gotten used to this place perhaps. Would you like to come in and keep me company for a little while?"

I smiled back. "Delighted, and thank you." So she stepped back and let me get in before the hatch door slid closed again. "I, well, I have to admit that I never thought of you as somebody who was ever 'not at ease.' I mean, I guess everybody has situations that unnerve them, but you always seem so... composed."

"Well, that's the image that I feel I have to keep up, I suppose," Inara admitted, dropping down into a chair at a small table. "Not sure if I've really felt at ease since I left my home Temple on Sihnon."

"Then why don't you go home?" I blurted out, stepping over to the table.

"Well - because there are more important things in life than feeling comfortable, for one. I guess I was too comfortable back on the inner worlds, and I wouldn't have traded what I've already seen and done out here for... anything." She tilted her head slightly, and I guessed that the subject of why she was here had been officially put aside for the time being. "I don't have any tea made, but I could prepare some if you like. I've actually been drinking one of these for the past hour or so." She brought up a little can of Fizz-Cherry that we must have taken on a case or two of back on Ezra. I chuckled.

"Hand it over," I said, and surprised, Inara tossed the can in my direction. I was able to catch it with a reasonable imitation of grace, opened the top and took a swig with gusto. "Love these. So, umm... is there anything particular you want to talk about? I guess I'm all manner of curious about your profession, but..."

"It's not something I'm supposed to talk much about," Inara admitted. "Client confidentiality, Guild secrets and regulations, so on and so forth." She smiled. "What about you, Kaylee? I gathered that you grew up with Melany Waite on Three Hills, and it was only recently that you signed up as Serenity's mechanic and engineer, but that only gives me the setting to your story."

"Hmm." I considered. "Well, to tell you about how I ended up here, I guess I'll have to tell you about Bester." I paused, and Inara made a go-on gesture with her hand. "I met him in a local bar in town... one of those places that don't really need a name because it's THE place in town... or spoken of like it's an extension of the guy who run's the place. Joss's. Pretty empty, on account of being not even ten of the morning - I was just there because my Dad had asked me to run over a note about a... a gentleman's evening that Joss would be catering the next day, and pick up a case of something in the meantime. Huh... I guess I don't even know how the party went, if somebody got hurt or who won the most money with the cards."

"I think I get the picture," Inara said, after finishing her drink and starting to get out another one from the small pack under the table. "But Bester had come in to drink?"

"Somewhat to drink," I admitted. "More to look for tail I think, and aside from the girls who worked there I was the only one around. Still, he was cute, and charming, and I wasn't sure if I should arrange to meet him after bringing my Dad's stuff back... until he mentioned that he was the mechanic on a spaceship. It's not like that was an instant attractor, but I guess I was intrigued enough to ask if he could show me the engine room, and well, between one thing and another..."

Inara chuckled softly. "Really?"

-------------

Jonny and I had a lot of fun for the rest of that trip, which wasn't really lost on anyone, even his parents, who didn't seem to disapprove of our fling or anything. I had to admit that I felt a bit disappointed that we wouldn't be seeing each other anymore after the Winfields left Serenity - or at least, once Serenity left Dyton colony again. There were a few other little breakdowns to keep me occupied, but not busy for all day every day or anything.

In private, the four of us crew met one evening to discuss the next job and plans for what else we'd do on Dyton. "The silver heist is going to be tricky," Mal admitted, "and there'll probably be plenty of people chasing us after we get it. We won't be able to brake atmo and leave for Persephone right away: we'd be followed, but there are plans for a distraction and cutting out the local sensor network nearly two days afterward." He sighed. "It'll be dangerous, and I'm not sure that the two of you should even be around on board." He always meant Wash and I when talking about 'the two of you' like that.

"No way," Wash insisted. "If things are going to be that tough, you'll need us both - me behind the controls, and Kaylee ready to tweak the engines or fix a hit or whatever. You can't do this without us."

"Yeah," I chimed in, grateful that Wash had included me in his own objection.

"I think that that's right, sir," Zoe agreed. "I don't like it any better than you do, but..."

"I know it too," Mal grumped. "I'm not stupid. Wasn't seriously proposing leaving either of you behind, just saying that I don't like it... and that anything I order you to do to keep yourselves and the ship safe..."

"Yeah, I think I'm on board with that," Wash agreed. "If there's big hairy danger... I think I'm alright with you and Zoe going to meet it alone, as per usual."

"Come on, Wash," I complained.

"What? It may not be admirable to say... but if there's some bounty hunter pointing a gun at Mal, say... are you really telling me that you're going to leap in front of him and take the bullet? If you did, I wouldn't believe it. Not that you're not brave or don't care about him... but when that moment comes, you'd know deep down that he's better able to deal with that situation than either of us are. Probably would find some way to talk himself out of the whole fix without anyone firing a shot - or not towards him, at least."

"Well, thanks for the vote of condifence, I guess," Mal said, and then made a face. "Well, you know what I mean."

"Confidently we do, sir," Zoe put in. Mal rolled his eyes.

"Okay, what about the 'ponic reservoir then?" I asked. "We want to get it back up and running before we leave for Persephone if we can, right? And if there will be lots of craziness and people chasing us after the heist, then..."

"There's Colston's yard," Wash said. "It'd be a good place to lay low anyway, and they can take care of the reservoir..."

"No," Zoe cut him off. "Laying low is good, but I don't want to have Serenity's guts laid open, when we might need to run at any moment." She sighed. "And we'll have nearly two days between landing before we jack the silver. That will be enough time for a good spaceport hydroponic crew to put us to rights, yes?"

"It -- it should," I agreed. "Can't say for complete sure, but..."

"On the off chance, we can insist on closing up and leaving before they're finished," Mal put in. "No problem." He considered. "Any other questions??"

"What's our new renter going to be up to while we're making with the crime?" Wash asked.

Zoe smiled slightly. "She has quite a full social schedule prepared for Dyton... or maybe I should say a work schedule, though the lines are sometimes blurred. We won't see much of her until we're ready to go, which is all to the good. We *don't* need her help on this one." Not that Zoe would take it if we did, I suddenly realized. She didn't trust her yet... but Wash and I had proved ourselves. That was good.

"And does she realize what we'll be up to, and that she'll be going on to Persephone with wanted criminals?" I asked.

"I haven't laid everything clearly on the line with Miss Sera, but she's smart about people and has probably figured a lot of it out," Mal said, smiling just slightly. "If not - well, it'll be interesting to see how she reacts when the shoe finally does drop."

"You're not worried that she might, oh, say, try to turn us in?" Wash asked.

"I'm not that easy to sell out," Mal muttered darkly.

And as it happened, that was when Gwendolyn Rook-Winfield knocked on the lounge door and asked if we'd seen her puzzle cube. So we broke up the confab and invited her in to look around for it.

----------

"So, what are you going to be doing when your family gets to Dyton colony?" I asked Jonny as we lay side by side on my bed again. We had one more day and night aboard the ship before landing, so this probably wouldn't be the last time, but I was feeling a bit nostalgic and mushy already. "School, or work in some place like the ground-car shop you mentioned back in Cara Dawn?"

He chuckled throatily and kissed my back jut below the base of the neck, square between my shoulder blades, which he'd discovered was a sensitive patch for me. "Hopefully not another place like that dump."

"Oh... I got the impression that you had fun there."

"Well maybe, but there's more to life than fun." Jonny laughed a bit harshly. "It didn't pay well enough. We've been sending messages back and forth with my uncle Thatcher. He said that he could get Dad and me, better work, and probably Tony-boy too." I had to chuckle; 'Tony-boy' was what Jonny always called Gwendolyn's husband, but not without a certain amount of affection. "Foresting mostly - hard work, but the money is definitely good."

"Risky, too," I couldn't help pointing out. A few kids I knew from school had done 'forest work' during the summer back home. "Getting bits of yourself cut off my accident, or crushed by big trees landin' on ya..."

"I'll be careful enough, darling," Jonny insisted, though I wasn't quite sure if there was any point in getting into the reassuring boy/nervous girl pattern when we were going to part before he ever reported for work. "And after a year or two of that, maybe I'll have enough saved up to make it into a trade school, and *design* air cars."

"Oh, cool," I admitted. "That sounds like fascinating work. You ever done something like that before? I, well, I mean..."

"I've done all the mech drafting I could take, so far, though the few practical assignments were more like household gadgets than vehicles," he said. "And designed my fair share of med-crate racers."

The thought of Jonny riding up a hilly city street in an emptied crate of Alliance inoculation supplies, with a scrounged battery motor driving the wheels, made me smile. "Win any races?"

"Enough of them. But come on, what about you and the future. Gonna stay on with this endearing but run-down scud-bucket for all your born days?"

The thought startled me. It hadn't been that long since I'd signed up with Serenity and her disreputable crew, but I... well, I guess I could see myself leaving someday, MAYBE - but not in any particular time frame that I could come up with. And the thought of living out a long and happy life on this ship, maybe meeting a guy who'd become part of the Serenity family too, not just a passing distraction to us like Jonny... having kids and bringing them up to respect and love the ship as much as I did, to help take care of her maybe... the notion was seductive. Zoe had told me at one idle moment that she'd been born and raised on a space vessel herself, one several times bigger than ours, but still the idea seemed to be born out. "Maybe. I don't have any plans to leave. Might end up quitting just as quickly as I came, or I might not." I sighed. "Do you want me to look you up if we're heading back to Dyton again?"

He considered. "Maybe better wave first. I'll get a lifelong number and make sure that you have it." He sighed and nuzzled up into my hair for a moment, then whispered. "After all, if I meet some other girl and ask her to marry me, it could be awkward if you just show up on the doorstep one day."

"Yeah, I guess you have a point," I said wistfully. And then spun around to meet his lips with my own, and wrap myself around him one more time at least.

-----------

I kissed Jonny goodbye in public at the Dyton spaceport, and didn't even feel odd about it being in front of his family and all. "You've got the comm number, and we'll be here in the port for two days more," I reminded him. "Don't be a stranger. I'll miss you."

"As will I you, my dear Kay Leigh," he muttered, and chuckled at something, though I wasn't sure what. "But the fingers of fate are moving us apart." He brushed a lock of hair away from my forehead one last time, and then stepped away towards the passenger ground-shuttle. I turned around, and saw four sets of eyes looking at me - Mal, Wash, Zoe, and Inara.

"Okay, okay, show's over," I said. "Whatever there is to see, it's not over here anymore."

"Was there a reason that you didn't head off by yourself already, Miz Serra?" Mal asked Inara pointedly.

"Well, I didn't make my first appointment for three more hours - couldn't be sure that you'd make it here when you said you would after all," she said matter-of-factly. Wash bristled slightly at the implied slight to his skills both piloting and navigational. "And there's a few more things that I want to arrange with respect to the shuttle, which could be most easily facilitated here at the port. All within the scope of the original rental agreement."

"Didn't you customize the interior enough back on Ezra?" Mal griped. Inara lifted one elegant eyebrow at him. "I... I don't mind as long as you're sticking around, suppose. If you leave us soon, then the expense of converting that shuttle back..."

"Will be paid, certainly," Inara said smoothly. She was in a much more involved red outfit today. "That's a fair concern. Excuse me." And with that, she headed off towards one particular group of storefronts. Zoe shot Mal a look, and when Wash led the way off in another direction, I followed him. Wasn't long before we found ourselves in the small office of a hydroponic technician team.

"Hmm -- probably doesn't matter now, but could you say what the smell reminded you of?" the roundish man sitting at the desk said after Zoe had explained the basic situation to him. "Just in general terms - smoke, fish, rotten eggs, hot peppers..."

"No, it was like nothing else I'd ever come across," I said.

"I've been thinking about that," Zoe answered. "Came across this stuff just once, on the moons of Hera - skunk spray. The little critters are almost extinct."

"It'll be good when they *are* gone, too," the man said. "Or - well, I've never seen or smelled one before, but - you were growing B Hillifeth?" Wash nodded. "I think I've heard of a mutation that gives off that sort of odor. Doesn't hang on particularly long, so you should be clear... but maybe we should start you up with Arapen 3 instead. It'll attack any remaining Hillifeth cells, normal or mutated, and the sale price is good all over. Stuff is easy to turn into subsistence rations with a little equipment, and there are always more people to feed. Hillifeth is mostly used as an industrial cleaner, and you always hear about factories closing down on the news..."

"So it'll cost us more for the Arapen starter than with Hillifeth?" Mal asked shrewdly.

"A little more, but it'll nearly pay itself back the first time you harvest the reservoir..."

I looked over at Wash and rolled my eyes slightly as the two of them settled down to haggling, and Wash just shrugged. Finally, the deal was struck on Arapen, as well as flushing the dead stuff out of Serenity's reservoir and giving it a basic cleaning inside. The weighty guy promised that Serenity would be ready in thirty-six local hours, and that they wouldn't disturb any of us, (because we'd be going back to the ship for sleep tonight.) As we walked back out of the office, I turned to Zoe. "So, what next?"

"Well, somebody needs to swap out oxygen tanks and used-up scrubbers with fresh ones," she said. "I... I think that the men folk can probably take care of that for us, huh?"

I blinked, and looked over at Mal and Wash, who each shrugged and smiled in some sort of order. "Yeah I guess, but why? It's sort of in my job description, after all."

Now Mal nodded with sudden understanding. "Actually, there's something else come up that I think you're more qualified than I am at. Don't worry - I've done this kind of work before, and so has our good pilot. Serenity's in good hands."

"Alright I suppose," I muttered, and the guys turned back to the ship. "So, what's this something else??"

"I'll try to explain on the way," Zoe said, and then gave me a long up-and-down look. "We're not in a hurry I think, and you could stand with a change of clothes. Nothing too fancy, mind, but a little bit more 'cute girl-from-next-door' and less grease monkey. Want to go shopping?"

"Umm, okay?" I said, feeling very confused about all of this. A change of clothes? Wait... "Are we going in disguise or something - like back on Paquin, when you and Mal --"

"No, not really, not hiding our identities from anyone who would want to know that we're from Serenity," Zoe said, taking my arm gently and steering me away from the exit I thought we were heading for and toward - toward a flight of stairs that led to a walkway that ran above and across the street outside the port building. "Just a question of making the right impression."

------------

I wasn't quite sure I liked the impression that Zoe was having me make, sitting in the hard plastic chair, (with the seat and back at what seemed like unusual angles.) The halter-top wasn't too bad, but a skirt like this one seemed way too short. Zoe had spent most of the time up at a counter across the room, and it was a LONG room, so I wasn't at all sure what she and the man were talking about. That, too, was making me feel very nervous.

"Hello there," a boy said, appearing out of nowhere, (or at least somewhere that I hadn't been paying attention to,) and claiming the seat next to mine like he'd been born to it. "What's your name?"

"I... I'm not answering that yet," I blurted out, and suddenly realized how rude that sounded. "Um, sorry, at least not until I can ask you some questions. What is this place? Do you know what's going on? I... I'm very sorry, but Zoe didn't really tell me anything, and it's gotten on my nerves, so I'm understandably jumpy. And my name is Kaylee, how about you?"

Boy gave me a long, staring look, and I guess I couldn't blame him for that after my response. He looked to be a few years younger than me, about of an age with Jonny's younger brother Derek, and had really pale yellow hair on top of his lanky body. When he spoke again, his Dyton accent seemed thicker. "Well, let's see. You're in the waiting room of the Harlin Insurance Company. There's probably a lot going on, but I'm not aware of anything particularly significant or anything that might involve you. I'm just here because my Mom's going to take me to the videoplex after she gets off work, and I get bored waiting for her. And you can call me Barry."

I must have blushed and shook my head in confusion at the same time. "Insurance??" That didn't fit with any of my notions about why Zoe had asked me to change, but... "I, well, I'm sorry if I bit your head off or anything..."

He made a big show of checking his neck for bite wounds that made me laugh out loud. "No, seems to be still here. I admit that I was startled by the tirade, but if you were nervous and didn't know why you'd been brought here, then..."

"Hey, Kaylee?" Zoe suddenly called. "Come on over here."

"Oh, that's my... cue or something," I muttered. "Bye Barry, and hope you have fun at the videoplex." I waved slightly as I got up, and he waved back with both hands. A sweet kid after all, I guess, though I'm not sure what I expected. "Hello there," I said, coming up to Zoe. "What's up?"

"Mister Brokop here was just going to show me something, and I thought that you would like to come along," Zoe said slowly, and I stifled a sigh. WHAT were we doing here, after all?

Mister Brokop led the way, and I managed to whisper the first thing that occurred to me into Zoe's ear. "Are we filing a claim on the hydroponic reservoir or something??"

That managed to stop Zoe in her tracks for a moment. "What on... no, sheesh! We don't... well, actually, Mal has a sort of an insurance policy on Serenity, but any losses we took from the reservoir are far below the deductible. That's *not* why we're here. Sorry if I had to confuse you so much, but... well, you're along to look pretty and ask whatever questions occur to you - in front of the guy. It'll make him feel smart and important, and that puts him in a good mood."

"Oh, is that it?" I said, my face falling. "Seems a bit... demeaning or whatever, don't it?"

"Only demeans the men who are fool enough to fall for the act," Zoe smirked, and then led the way back."

By this time, Brokop was waiting for us down the hallway at an open door that led into a small room with pastel blue and green checked wallpaper. We all sat down at the table, and he passed over several color photographs of pretty jewelry and other - assorted valuables, I guess. In a businesslike tone, he started to discuss various circumstances and scenarios about each item - the way that they'd been stolen or otherwise taken from their rightful owners.

"So... are you -" Zoe told me to blurt out whatever occurred to me, so... "Are you implying that Zoe had anything to do with the theft of these things?" It didn't make much sense... Zoe had come to this place of her own free will, after all, but...

Brokop laughed genially, and Zoe winked at me, out of his sight. Did that mean I'd done good? "No, Miss -- Frye?" I nodded as prettily as I could, (or maybe I only managed to look cute.) "Miz Alleyne and her - her partner have managed to retrieve property of value to the Corporation on a few previous occasions. Despite the... suspicion that such acts sometimes generates, I and my immediate superior have made our choice to work with them and even to apprise them of items that should be brought to our attention if they should find them, or even hear about them, in the future."

"Ahh, I see," I put in. "You've had this stuff insured, it's been swiped, and you've got only so long to either retrieve it or pay up. If Zoe happens to cross paths with a disreputable character and finds out that he's got... well, this necklace, she steals it back and brings it in because, it's the right thing to do?"

Brokop laughed again. "I'm not quite that naive. She'll take it to us because we'll pay a higher proportion of its value than a black market fence, who'll have to squirrel the necklace away for a long time before it isn't too hot to sell any more, risk getting caught by Alliance police in the time and connected to it, have to protect it from other criminals who might try to raid his stash, and so on. We don't have those problems."

"Which doesn't mean that you wouldn't double-cross us and turn us in as thieves if you could - maybe," Zoe said breezily. "But it's a pleasure doing business with you, compared to the same old scum and lowlifes. So what about this one?"

"Wait a second," I put in. If I was here to ask dumb questions and make Brokop feel smart, I might as well do the best job that I could. "What if they find out that somebody else has some item, but can't get it back for you?"

"Well, then they have a choice to make - they can call in a tip, and take the rather lower finder's fee that any such tipsters may get contingent on our being able to recover property based on their information. Or keep quiet according to any criminal codes of conduct that they might choose to honor,

I didn't really have any other questions that I wanted to ask in front of Mister Brokop, and we went over all of the other pictures that he had for us. Only once we had left did I mention one other thing to Zoe. "So how often do we steal from other thieves and sell the stuff back to the insurance companies? Or rat them out? Isn't that dangerous?"

Zoe shrugged. "Not too often, but it's good to keep our options open. Most of these other thieves don't like us much to start with."

I had to shrug and be content with that for now.

----------

I walked alone through Serenity's corridors, wondering if this was the fate of being the new girl on the crew, the mechanic, or just the petite girl. The silver heist was underway; Mal, Zoe, and Wash were all in on it, and I'd been told to stay behind and watch over Serenity by myself. Inara was off on one of her appointments, the Winfields were long gone, and Jonny hadn't waved me back yet. Oh well.

Stopping in the engine room, I got into the hammock and turned on the cortex screen, wondering if there was anything there capable of abating my terrible boredom. But - did I need to be concerned about sending out any Cortex activity, considering that we were probably going to be on the run from the authorities in less than an hour?

No, that wasn't a concern YET. Once the rest of the gang were aboard, once we were really hiding, then we'd need to stay off the Cortex indeed, but at this point it didn't seem to make any difference. As far as that went, it might be better for 'normal' and inconspicuous activity to be coming from the ship, instead of a silence that might be suspected - not too likely, I had to admit, since there were probably a lot of parked ships that didn't have any reason to send out Cortex signals, but why not?

But what? I didn't really want to send a wave out to anyone that I knew personally, just in case this traffic might be monitored and connected with the theft later, because I didn't want to get my family, or Jonny, or Melany in trouble later. (And Melany might be browned off at me now, if she and Barret had figured out that it was friends of mine who stole that Dubnium.)

So I started with pulling a news feed for back home, and then, well, for no particular reason I started reading stuff from the Companion's guild home node, just because I was curious about Inara and wanted to understand her work. It became quickly evident that there was much more to Companioning than looking pretty on some rich man's arm and later on in his bed. (Or the reverse order, for that matter.) I wasn't quite sure exactly what 'Physical psycho-therapy' meant, not to mention some of the stuff talking about ancient Earth-that-was goddess archetypes, but... well, maybe I'd have to ask Inara about that a bit more, if I had the nerve to bring this up.

I had moved on and was looking for a history node that seemed to be capable of talking about the Unification war without being transparently and relentlessly anti-Independent when the code signal came through on my communicator wand that shuttle two was heading back to home base, mission accomplished. I checked out the engine systems first, and was nearly finished the pre-flight pilot's checklist that Wash had given me when the shuttle arrived and docked. It was obvious from the way the little bird handled that she was heavy, mostly on the center bottom, and I took that as a good sign, that she was loaded down with giant bricks of pure silver.

Wash only double-checked a few of the items from the list, and also confirmed a few other things before blasting us right off. "Any unexpected surprises?" I asked the immediate company in general before heading back aft.

"Nothing as dramatic as last time," Zoe answered easily.

"Yeah, but I got a bad feeling," Mal admitted. "Like somebody was watching us and not interfering. That's never good."

"Well, don't worry about it," Wash said. "We're off to the spot you pointed out in the hills, too high for direct observation and too high for radar tracking. They'll never follow us there."

How wrong he was, but none of us suspected it at the time.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	6. Chapter 6

Week Seven

"Kaylee?" Mal complained, making me look up from my own digging. "Gorram dirt blower's cut out, and this time I can't start it by bangin' on it."

I considered for a moment. "Wouldn't it be faster for you to just join us with old-fashioned hand tools, sir? We're almost finished, after all."

Zoe cocked her head at each of us in turn. "Actually, I think you're both right. Mal will keep working while you do your magic, of course... but you'd better take a look at the thing. Mal's done more than the rest of us put together, using that contraption - and anyway, we probably can't cover up this hole believably without it. More than speed, that's the important point."

"Alright, I'm on it," I said, handing my spade to Mal and accepting the 'blower in exchange. Now, did I bring out a tool-belt? No, I guess it hadn't occurred to me that I might need one. The dirt blower was a fairly simple contraption, with a battery-powered mower that ran both the digging blades and the blowing fan. Dead battery? Wouldn't Mal a- checked on that before he started? Well, knowing Mal, maybe and maybe not. Considering the sort of conditions we were using the thing in, was quite possible that something had gotten badly jammed, or maybe a connection had come loose...

Not sure if you'd figured this out by now, but we were in the middle of burying the silver hoard - had already dug out the hole and put the loot inside, and were trying to get it well covered up now before anybody spotted the whole business. Mal and Zoe had picked a deserted patch of the moon for this, plenty of fine white sand, which hadn't been too hard to dig through and hopefully would be easy to spread out without leaving any sign of where it had been disturbed.

Oh, one small point I wanted to mention - it's surprising how small a hundred and eighty cubic feet worth of solid silver looks when it's at the bottom of a ten foot deep hole.

So, I brought a tool kit outside so that I could at least keep Wash and the others company as they kept digging away, and I hurried to service the blower just as quickly as I could. (Now, why does that seem dirty when I write it down?) Mal was makin' pretty free with the Cantonese, and even Wash's very calm temper was starting to fry away when I finally got the last of a dozen big grains of sand pried out of the fan axle. "There you go," I said, reaching out to hand it down to Mal. "Normally I'm a supporter of the 'whack it one until it starts working again' approach, but this time I think it was slowly making things worse and worse."

"Hmm." Mal considered the implement and shook his head. "Nah, let Zoe take over with it now."

"What makes you think I want to bother with that thing?" Zoe asked, but from the half-smile on her face, (she almost never bothered with a full one,) she was gently teasing him. "You just want to stay in on the viscerally satisfying muscle work."

"You've got the light touch," Mal put in. "That's what we'll be needing now."

So Zoe took the blower, and sure enough it wasn't time before everybody was satisfied with the job. "Alright, now we're off," Wash said with relish.

"So, we, umm... we just leave it here?" I asked, feeling a bit foolish. On the one hand, there didn't seem to be much point in burying the treasure unless we were going to leave it. That had already been sort of explained. Somebody was probably trying to find us already, and we couldn't hide ourselves by burying the entire ship nearly so easily. Whoever it was, they were probably even skilled and numerous enough to out-shoot Mal and Zoe. So we had to hide the treasure while we could, and even though it was buried now, staying in the area might draw attention to it. But still... "I mean, if somebody finds us, what good is the silver to us if we get shot?"

"Not much," Zoe admitted. "But it won't be any good to whoever shoots us, either. The only people who will find it if we're dead will be Niska's crew - eventually. This has been worked out with them, as an insurance policy."

"Great plan," I muttered. "Wish we could pick another beneficiary."

"You don't know Niska," Mal said severely. "He's a good businessman, if nothing else, and is taking a flyer on us by offering us this sort of work. Even if the percentage is low enough to give me pause, our share of this take will be quite a lot." He smiled slightly. "And don't worry too much about anybody shooting me dead. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve."

"Right, yeah," I muttered, not too impressed. "Well, never mind that. We're going to get going already, so no point in waiting around 'til I've accepted the necessity and so on."

"Good attitude," Zoe muttered softly, and we all packed up our stuff, making sure that the vicinity was clear, and headed back into the ship.

------------

"It's the waiting that always gets to me," I complained about two hours later.

"Let's hope that's the only thing that gets to any of us," Mal muttered in reply, taking a bite of a particularly stale and dry looking ration stick. "Yeah, I have a hard time with patience too, even back in the war. But being bored means generally that you're not in real trouble, so it's much the lesser of two evils."

"Patience apparently has a hard time with you," I replied. "Judging from her shooting you and all." Mal shot me a mean look. "You know, patience the scary lady who runs Whitefall?"

"Yeah, I know who you meant," Mal said, still staring.

"Okay, apparently that play on words isn't funny any more," I said out loud. Zoe and Wash nodded, so I filed the tidbit away to hopefully remember when the opportunity next came up. Then again, sometimes things that aren't funny anymore become funny later on, especially when somebody keeps harping on them. Did I want to try again? No, I don't really have the nerve to keep trying something like that just to get a laugh.

"Anyone up for chore poker again?" Wash said, pulling out the small stack of circular cards. Zoe shrugged, and Mal nodded after a moment.

"Sure, let's have a deal or two," I said. "Does everybody still have their stakes from last time?"

"Yeah, but the cockpit head HAS been cleaned already," Mal said, shuddering slightly with the memory of the task he'd finally taken on while we were still at the Dyton Colony spaceport, "and it won't need it again for a while, so no sense playing for it again. Any other changes we need to make?"

There were a few, as usual, but it didn't take long to get the little slips of paper sorted out. Wash started handing out cards, just to see who would be the first to get a proper deal, which was the first person that got dealt a heavenly beast. Mal got the banana Phoenix, and he shuffled again and dealt out.

Apples were tall, and I had a pair of tortoises and a pair of sevens, with one of the sevens being an apple. Decent hand, but not too likely to improve with a draw or a... well, if Wash didn't take the tall card, I could get it and move up to three tortoises. Yeah, that would be worth a try. But Wash *did* swipe the tall apple. I stayed in for a few rounds of betting before the draw, throwing in dishes and sweeping up the cargo hold, and then dropped it out when it became clear that Wash and the captain were in a serious bidding war, and I didn't want to trust in my lousy two pair.

I was still down slightly, though I'd managed to win two small pots, when the explosion sounded and Serenity shook slightly. Mal and Zoe were immediately up and muttering to each other about how they each KNEW that somebody should have stood on guard. Things got very crazy. Everyone was sent running around the ship to look out windows and report back on Serenity's built-in intercom system, which was more awkward but had the advantage of being much harder, if not impossible, to eavesdrop on compared to the personal communicators. I gathered that from the sound and the impact, it had been some sort of light grenade exploded against the side of the hull as a warning message, nothing more - that whoever it was WANTED us now to know that they were out there.

The news wasn't particularly good. Confident in Wash's flying, we'd relaxed while some group of competent bounty hunters or a competing criminal gang had arranged the upper hand. The main exits from the ship were all covered at gunpoint, and explosives had been laid underneath the thrusters so that we couldn't take off without getting in trouble.

"So, what's the plan?" I asked, as Mal and Zoe exchanged dark looks. "Sneak out through some hatch that they'd never have expected, and get the jump back on them?"

"Well, there's the top airlock," Zoe said to Mal, sounding doubtfully. "I could try to do some quick shooting from the top of the boat."

"They hear gunfire coming from up there, and they'll try something desperate, I wouldn't doubt," Mal muttered. "They'll have hardware that'll do sufficient damage to keep us from being space worthy anytime soon, and if pushed to it they'll use that. May profit them none, but it'll fair wreck the plan." He paused for another moment, and then came to a decision. "I like our odds better trying to talk our way out of it."

"Talk, sir?" Zoe said, with a hard to read expression on her face. (That was weird; because usually her expressions do tell more than her words will say.)

I sidled over to Wash as Mal considered how to reply to this. "What do you think?" I whispered.

"Not sure," he admitted. "Like the notion of Zoe *not* shooting at mercenaries or other people who could shoot grenades back at her... but Mal's often not as clever as he thinks he is. Could go either..."

"They're not here to shoot us," Mal put in. "They want the silver too. Could be Badger got wind of the heist and sent them over from Persephone, or maybe this Mingo Jerry that we've heard whispers about."

"Mingo *and* Fanty," Zoe corrected. "From Beaumonde, or based there. Twins, running the outfit together."

"Whatever, it doesn't matter," Mal said irritably. "The point is, that they want to find out where it is from us. That gives us leverage. They won't shoot anybody straight off - not even as motivation, not if they know anything about us."

"That we're stubborn ex-Army 'liou mahng' who'll tend to shoot back if someone from our unit is shot, no matter what the consequences are?" Zoe filled in. "Yeah, I guess that there's that. If they already found out where we made the dig, they'd have just taken it and left without bothering us, aside from laying those mines and posting a guard. But if we *don't* tell them where the loot is, and I know you don't intend to do that, then... things will still get stickier than they are now. Just how do you expect to get out of here with our lives and the payoff?"

"I... I don't know, Zoe," Mal admitted, and his face looked tired and a bit worried, though his voice was level. "Maybe I'll figure it out when I meet these guys. Figure out what makes them tick, and there'll be some weakness. Hopefully we'll be able to make use of it."

"What about us?" Wash asked. I knew that he didn't really want to let Zoe walk out of there into danger, and yet wasn't quite up to volunteering to go too, even if the captain would be likely to let him come.

"Hmm -- not much sense in having you in the cockpit, if we can't take off without going boom..."

"I can prep up for a running start, using the maneuvering jets and the main engine," Wash asserted. "Not that much of a chance, but... but if talking to them flops, and one or both of you are hurt, then it might be the only chance we've got. Point the side thrusters so far backward that they won't be burning on the mines, at least."

"We probably wouldn't even get off the ground like that," Zoe put in. "And they can still take potshots at us as we go. Well, you're right - it's a hell of a plan B, but all we might have." She looked at me. "Kaylee, you can help get ready for that, right? Making sure that the jets give us as much oomph as possible and so on?"

"Yeah, sure," I said. "And - and what if the other guys - get on board the ship?"

"We don't mean to let that happen," Mal said. "Especially not without one of us being here. They might want to search for our loot, and - well, anyway. If you do see someone unfamiliar, then something's gone badly wrong, and --"

"Do you want guns?" Zoe asked both of us pointedly. "You shouldn't have to use them, but just in case - I've got a small derringer that you could take, Kaylee."

"Umm... no, I think maybe I have less of a chance of getting hurt if I don't look like I'm a threat," I muttered. "Never could stand the thought of holding a piece anyway..."

"You might get..." Wash started, and then trailed off. I knew what he meant.

"Even so. I'll keep something heavy and blunt within reach - if a body tries, he'll likely find himself with a goose bump on the back of his head. But not a bullet-hole."

"Alright," Zoe said softly. Wash ended up taking a pistol from Mal's collection, and Zoe showed him how to arrange the shoulder holster so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious that he was packing.

I worked hard on the thrusters that could point down and give Serenity some extra lift in case we needed them, trying to lose myself in the process of servicing the ship and not let my mind dwell on wondering what was happening outside the cargo bay ramp. Didn't have much luck at that, especially when I could just catch voices, Mal, Zoe's, and other men's, without making out what they were saying. There was a loud gunshot, and I cringed, but neither Mal nor Zoe called out an agreed on code word, so I was left wondering what had happened. Then, finally, I heard the ramp closing up again, and Mal was calling for Wash. I crept closer without coming into view.

"Okay, so, what happened and -- who's that? Is he... is he here to search the ship for loot?"

"Not yet, I think," Mal answered our pilot. "Wash, this is the newest member of our merry band, and -- I didn't quite catch your name, friend, actually."

"They call me Jayne," a rather deep, gruff voice replied. "Jayne Cobb. And no cracks of wise about that first name - my momma gave it to me, after all, and you do NOT want to say anything I'd find offensive about my momma."

"You know, I think I'll actually like working with you, Jayne," Zoe put in.

"Wait a second, you've actually HIRED him?" Wash said incredulously. "If I might be so bold as to ask, for what?"

"Well, as a hired gun to start off with, I suppose," Mal said evenly. "Suppose we should introduce you to our mechanic too, Mister Cobb. Kaylee?"

"Yeah, I'm here," I said a little too quickly after hearing my name, and stumbled a bit awkwardly into view. Smooth. If they hadn't guessed that you'd been listening in already, that little performance probably clinched things. "Umm..." I wasn't sure I wanted to go over asking the same questions as Wash, or to let on that I already knew some of the answers that had been given, so I stayed mum and waited to see how Mal would play things.

"This is Jayne," Mal put in. "We took the weapons off of his friends, so I don't think that they'll be at all inclined to hang around for long. We'll check in a bit, still need to clear away those mines. But unless it seems likely that they'll be bringing in others, we're in no hurry to move. Meanwhile, I guess we should settle you in your bunk, Jayne?"

By this point, Jayne had already cast a long hard look in my direction, and then turned away and wandered off to examine the mule where it was parked at the side of the cargo bay. He was tall and very muscular, looking rather handsome with his short brown hair and beard, a somewhat classically chiseled face, and was still carrying lots of deadly weaponry. I wasn't at all sure what I thought of him joining 'the crew.'

Mal, meanwhile, was speaking again, but not for Jayne to hear - he was whispering in just a quiet enough voice that the rest of us, all standing fairly close to him, could hear, but Jayne couldn't unless he had ears as sharp as a dog's. "I just wish we had something better to offer him than the spare bunk; it's a bit - well, cramped, for a man that tall, for one thing. Not really that impressive, considering that was our biggest recruitment pitch..."

"It might have been a clincher, but I think the as-yet-unspecified percentage was at least as important," Zoe replied, a bit louder, so that Jayne could maybe listen in or maybe not. "And if it would make things easier with the room assignments..." She shot a meaningful look at Wash, but bless his heart, the meaning must have entirely passed him by, because he just shrugged a bit awkwardly. Zoe sighed. "Wash, how'd you feel about bunking in with me, so that Jayne can take your old digs?"

"I, umm, uhh..." Wash seemed very confused at this, and not that eager to move out for the benefit of the new guy. Then the possible perks of living with Zoe must have started to occur to him. "Uh, yeah, I think that would work out just okay. It's a good bunk, and I'm sure... Jayne - will like it."

Mal was looking back and forth between the two of them with a startled look on his face. Jayne, at this point, had started to realize that the conversation might be more interesting than the mule and was wandering back. "The two of you, just out of the black... no, it wouldn't be entirely without preamble, would it? Things like that never are. Which means, I suppose, that I just managed to miss the signs." He looked over at Zoe. "For how long?"

"Oh, not that long," Zoe admitted. "You know how much he used to bother me, especially with the mustache." This was said with the air of a tender joke between herself and her new guy, now. "I guess it would have been starting... on Ezra or maybe just a day or two before we landed."

"That's not so long," Mal said. "I do appreciate the gesture under the circumstances, but... are you sure that bunkin' down together is the right move to be making?"

"Wait a second... her, and him?" Jayne pointed at Zoe and Wash in turn, and seemed to be asking the question of me. "Huh, wouldn't have thought of that one. Total opposites - but I *have* heard some say about how those tend to attract. In the meantime, I guess it goes to show the advantage of working on a crew that isn't all just fellas."

I really didn't like the way he looked at me, (and especially at my front,) when he said that.

Zoe, meanwhile, had started talking over Jayne's sidebar without really noticing him. "...But when something is really right, you just know it." She stepped over to Wash and took his left forearm in her right hand. "I've never been in love before, pretty sure, but I recognize it now, and I know well enough that life in this 'verse is short enough to not wait for the things that matter." Something else seemed to occur to her as she heard her own words. "In point of fact - you wanna maybe make it all official when we get to Persephone, Washburne? Marry off?"

"I... are you asking me to marry you?" Wash had to ask, looking even more bug-eyed. I had to feel a bit of sympathy for how many buttons of his Zoe was pushing in this scene without even realizing it.

"Well, I was bringing up the subject for conversation," Zoe replied, back-pedaling just a bit. "And I guess I did ask if you wanted to. Not like I was making a formal proposal or anything, but... is that terrible important, who asks?"

"Um, no, I guess not," Wash admitted. "It's slight important. No more. But I guess my answer is... I would love to be your husband, Zoe Alleyne, but not in a week when we get to Persephone. All that stuff you said about not waiting for our life to start is well taken, but... there's a point where it gets to be ridiculous, and more than I can deal with." He had turned to face her by now, and reached up one hand to stroke her cheek in such a gentle way that it made my knees weak. "Part of it is the way I was brought up, honey. I just want a slightly longer engagement... and maybe a chance to get word to my family and see if they want to be at the wedding... which I guess would mean it would have to be near home, because..."

He trailed off, but Zoe smiles broadly. "Yeah, okay. Come to think of it, I could try waving to my own father... though it might strike him as somewhat funny if I actually ask him to walk me down an aisle, and give me away. He'd say that in his heart, he gave me away to the Army years ago."

"Then maybe I could step into his place," Mal mumbled nervously. "I mean - well, I'm your oldest friend, I'm your captain, and was your superior in the Army. Would that seem too weird?" He thought of something else. "Or did you want me to officiate?"

"Captains of smuggling ships can't really officiate weddings," Wash said quickly.

"Or at least, not according to the *Alliance*," Mal rattled off, rolling his eyes upwards.

"Well, I think we'll pick someone landside," Zoe said mildly. She also shot Mal an odd look that I couldn't make much of at the moment, except that maybe she was surprised that he was taking all the news so well.

That was pretty much all of the drama that we got at the time. Mal, Zoe, Wash, and Jayne all went out to clear away the mines just so that we could take off in a hurry if we needed to, while I stayed behind to 'mind the boat' - basically, as long as I still wasn't ready to hold a gun, I wasn't let outside while Jayne's old compadres might still come back. Afterwards, the threesome of Mal, Zoe, and Jayne were almost constantly watching out the windows for any sign that somebody else was sneaking up on us, and Wash spent a lot of time at the comm board in the cockpit, listening in on just about every frequency on the band, trying to figure out what was going on.

At one point, I was in the cockpit with him, and a greenish-yellow light lit up on the board. "That's Inara callin' us, ain't it?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said shortly. "Can't come on and answer her - especially not after the close scrape we had."

"But she'll get worried if the shuttle can't raise us," I said. "Nobody warned her about having to put up with this sort of thing, did we?"

"Well, no," Wash answered. "But, well - I did prepare for it. If we don't answer in sixty seconds, then a recorded message at the spaceport will come in, explaining how we've been called away and might not be able to get her transmission, or might have to keep silent on the radio, but that we still mean to make the rendezvous and that she has all the info on it. That's as much as I could think of to explain without involving a serous risk of someone else overhearing it."

"Okay, yeah, that does make some sense," I said. "Of course, if somebody does know that Inara was attached to us, in the shipwise fashion, then it probably wouldn't have taken any message at all to think of following her to us."

"Yeah," Wash said. "I think that my fiancée has planned something to prepare for that possibility... but I don't know any of the details."

"You just love being able to call her that, don't you?" I said, swatting him lightly on the shoulder. "Well, congratulations, anyway. One of the oddest engagements I've ever witnessed, not that there have been many, and most of them were in my small town back home, so - well, you know." I had to pause, trying to think of what to say next. "But I think that Zoe and you will be really happy together."

"Thanks, me too," Wash agreed. "And, what do you think of this new guy, Jayne?"

"Oh, come on, no, nothing could ever happen between me an' Jayne," I quickly assured him. "He's handsome and all, but - well, really not my type of character, you know."

Wash turned a startled stare at me. "Methinks the engineer does protest too much," he said after a short moment. "Especially since I wasn't asking you about hooking up with Jayne, just your general impressions on the newest member of Serenity's crew."

"Oh," I muttered, seeing it. "Yeah, umm... do you really think it sounds like I'm... like a part of me wants to..."

Wash waited again as I trailed off, and then answered me seriously. "I'm not completely sure. That's up to you to decide, I'm fairly sure. I don't know anything about the guy aside from first impressions, and neither do you. You'll have a chance to learn more for yourself, I think, and decide for yourself. Clearly there's a few - obvious mismatches, but then, as he pointed out, you could say the same about Zoe and I, definitely. And... and I know how much you'd love to have some sort of company who you aren't just dallying with on a particular world, or for the length of one particular trip. Seems like Jayne may be with us for a while, so this might be your chance."

"Yeah, I suppose so," I said, not quite sure what to think anymore. "So, what's your family like, anyway?"

"Hmm? What brought - oh, because I mentioned them when saying that I wanted to wait a while to get married?"

"Yeah. Do you come from a long line of flyboys?"

"Oh, heck no. My father, is actually a bit phobic about any form of transportation except walking. He can more or less keep it under control with private ground cars and such, but air cars, or planes, or spaceships? Not even a chance. So if he were going to be there for the ceremony, we'd have to hold it back on Beaumonde. But... but I'll never forget the way he looked at me when we found out I'd been accepted to flight school. I - I think that he regretted all the places he never got a chance to see, the things he never got a chance to do, because of his - problem. He was so PROUD of me, that I'd get to live those dreams that he couldn't, and not even jealous a little bit." Wash smiled fondly. "He's a REALLY smart guy, my Dad, and he's probably read and viewed about more places than I've even flown to, or will... but it's just not the same."

I smiled too, touched by the affection in Wash's voice when he'd been speaking. "What does his job involve? Some kind of desk work, or..."

"Yeah, pretty much. Sales and management - he drifts around a bit, always learning and trying new challenges in the business world. And then, my Mom... well, this actually sounds a bit weird, 'specially under the circumstances, but I guess Mom is sort of a bit like an older version of you."

"What, really?"

"Sort of. You have that same cheerful outlook as she does, and the talent for keeping things organized and working right. With her, it's not quite so much mechanical as you... at least, I think that's something that's true about you at this point in your life and not just how I'm seeing you because it's your job. She's handy with a wrench and a pair of pliers, Ma is, but also - well, a great cook definitely, and just... well, she's great at organizing things... homey things. Doesn't just keep our own house running perfectly, but last I heard she was also helping a few of the neighbors out with theirs... at the neighbors' request."

We chatted for a while longer about families and home life, and then I went back to the engine room, wondering if Jayne would come poking around and find me there. (I might have been safer from that kind of thing if I'd actually gone down into my bunk, so I'm not quite sure why I didn't.) But he actually didn't show up, and I spent most of the evening reading in my hammock - more technical specs, which might sound dry and boring to you, but I just get lost in some of the case studies - and also one of those sword and sorceress fantasy romance tales.

When I finally left the engine alone, I cut back through the dining room - and there he was. The new guy, Jayne. Paused a moment, then sat down at the table, nearly opposite him, as he put the final touches on what obviously wasn't his first sandwich of the night. "Hey, there... Kaylee, right?" he said, considering his handiwork before taking a first bite. I nodded but didn't answer out loud. "Listen, I wanted to apologize if I... came off a little too crude or anything this afternoon. I know I get like that, but... well, I'm not used at all to the idea of working with ladies on the team, and..."

I had to chuckle. "Not quite sure if either Zoe or I count as ladies, actually. Women, yes, but not high-class enough for that other word." Jayne laughed agreeably. "And then - well, there's Inara, and she's certainly ladylike, but I don't think she's really part of the team as much as... a permanent passenger of a sort, or at least I hope that she's pretty permanent." Jayne was looking oddly at me. "Nobody mentioned Inara? Well, she rented out shuttle one as of Ezra, and she's a registered Companion."

"A whore?"

"Don't let her call you that," I said, but didn't really want to get into the bigger issue. "Anyway, the apology is accepted. It isn't easy just coming aboard Serenity - though I guess the adjustment will be easier for you, since you're used to doing this kind of work and so on. Just, different people and so on."

Jayne considered that. "You've never worked as a mechanic on a ship since... just how long ago was it that Reynolds recruited you?" He sounded worried.

"Umm..." I thought about it. "Around a month and a half, standard time. Don't worry, I've gotten pretty good at tending to Serenity's engine and all. Why, how much experience did the mechanic on your last crew have?"

Jayne shrugged and chuckled. "Didn't exactly have one, though Rafe was reasonably handy with a wrench. But whenever we were in Eavesdown docks or some other major port, we'd have a professional check the shuttle over."

"Hmm... well, to each team their own. I think that you're in better hands with me," I admitted.

"Starting to see that," he muttered, though I thought that he wasn't really only talking about me - or certainly not about my mechanic duties. Like he was realizing that this really was a different kind of crew from any that he'd been in, that Mal was a different kind of leader.

"Well, I guess I'm off to bed," I said, getting up.

Jayne lifted an eyebrow. "Wanting for company?"

"Not tonight, I think," I shot back, with a bit of a flirty air, and made exit on that line - before I anything happened that might change my mind.

-------------

I slept late - partially because I hadn't actually been able to get to sleep early, wondering if I was actually hearing noised from Zoe's bunk - now Zoe and Wash's - and also was devilled by surprisingly passionate thoughts about Jayne, wondering if he was lying awake himself in the next bunk over. Those notions followed me into my dreams at least partway, and when I finally woke up and emerged, (wondering if I'd run into Jayne in the hallway,) Wash cheerily called out that I'd missed the takeoff from Dyton moon, and we were already on our way to Persephone without any sign of pursuit or trouble.

Smiling a bit sadly, I headed up to the cockpit to sit next to Wash. "Was it exciting and all?"

"Hmm... maybe somewhat. Precise timing and all - and rather impressive to see the detection net just die off all at once like someone closed a switch," Wash said. "Five days now to make Eavesdown docks."

"What's Persephone like?" I asked. "And this Badger character that Mal mentioned?" Jayne had confirmed, I gathered, that the crew he'd been on had been assigned by Badger to steal the silver from us and ransom it back to the Dyton authorities we'd stolen it from. But Mal had also worked jobs for Badger himself, and expected to do so again, and I had to admit I wondered if the Persephone crime boss would hold a grudge for this job we were doing for Niska, and the fact that we'd stolen Jayne from the other crew leader.

"Persephone is an incredible place," Wash admitted after a moment. "A land of contrasts. The capital city - Lethe - has beautiful buildings - and some very rich people, who've settled it as a new beacon of civilization on the border. Some of the most powerful lords of the Core planets even have summer or winter estates on Persephone." He sighed. "And then, the slums are places of terrible poverty, right next to such wealth. In some ways, it'd be a great place for Zoe and I to start the next part of our life together."

"Even if your Dad wouldn't be able to make it there?" I asked, and Wash nodded. "What about Zoe's father? Has she ever mentioned him to you? Sounded yesterday like he was all the family that she had left."

"I've heard a little," Wash admitted. "Works on a ship too, actually - personnel officer, supply officer, adjutant or some such. On a big merchant marine freighter based out of Hera."

"I wonder if they had a scrap when she told him she was joining the Independent army," I said thoughtfully.

"I don't know that," Wash said. "She did mention that she grew up mostly on a spaceship."

"Okay." That seemed to wind up the Zoe conversation for now. "Oh - if we've left Persephone, then Inara is back again?"

"Well, yeah." That didn't seem to require any other comment in Wash's opinion.

"Has anyone introduced her to Jayne?"

"Oh, yeah, that was a fun moment," Wash agreed. "Too bad you missed it, and I didn't think of using a video capture."

"Boo," I declared, and got up. "Well, maybe I'll go and see if our Companion wants for some company."

"She put up a do not disturb flag on the shuttle," Wash told me. "Took a client along with us."

"Oh." Somehow I hadn't thought of that. "Is that covered in the deal that she made with Mal?"

"I don't think he realized it back then either," Wash admitted. "But Inara pointed out that the shuttle is hers to do with as she pleases, to see clients in whenever it doesn't interfere with our schedule, and this doesn't. She stocked up especially so that Mal couldn't say that the guy was eating our food - Inara's got kitchen privileges, but not her clients, and she doesn't want to seem to overstep her bounds by bringing anything of ours to them."

"Okay, that makes some sense, though it might be being overly careful." I just felt disappointed that I wasn't going to be able to spend more time with Inara, or to seek refuge in her shuttle from Jayne, if I decided that I needed refuge. A scene from one of the hottest dreams last night suddenly flashed into my mind - both Jayne Cobb and I completely bare, him licking and kissing my nipples, and whispering something that I might do to return the favor...

"So, umm... we don't need to worry about flying under low power from here all the way to Persephone?"

Wash grinned. "Nope. We were on low up until a few minutes ago, actually. Zoe turned things back on. Might have been what finally woke you up, the sounds of most of our systems starting up again."

"Hmm... I suppose that's possible," I admitted. After a moment's pause, I waved at Wash, and then left the cockpit.

-----------

I managed to avoid Jayne for most of the rest of that day - tinkering as usual, dealing with a few malfunctions in the port maneuvering jets, and the starboard wing engine, and a heating circuit in Inara's shuttle that refused to admit that it should turn off, which was apparently ruining the mood. Inara caught my eye at one point and nodded apologetically, so I guess she had been able to pick up that I was upset the guy was monopolizing her time. Seemed a bit on the heavy side, though I guess she doesn't always pick her customers based on the superficial elements of attraction.

Had a chance to ask Zoe more about Badger, since Wash and I had gotten distracted by other things, and hadn't really gotten that far. Apparently he was a Dyton colony native himself, though he'd lived on Persephone for years at least. "Little guy, a bit ugly - actually reminds me of a storybook goblin or such," Zoe said offhandedly. "Doesn't always treat us fair, but still far from one of the worst men in his line of work. Fairly plain and comfortable with calling a spade a spade, at least, and that endears him to me a bit."

And then, as the 'day' drew to a close, it happened, just like I'd been sort of wondering if it would. I'd already gotten changed for bed, and then been called up to tweak the containment regulator just a tad, and when I got back to the forward hall, there was Jayne. Wearing nothing his own self but tight black shorts and a white singlet top.

"You know, it's a bit foolish to keep denying it," he drawled, with a twinkle in those deep eyes. "You're hot for me, and I definitely like what I see. Why make a big deal out of it?"

"Well, it's no fun if it's only a little deal," I said, gesturing with a pinky finger in a way that I hoped I could pull off.

"I, umm... I didn't mean that, just..."

"Yeah, I know what you meant," I insisted. "Really I do. And I'm not one of those girls who expect to be whisked away to a marshmallow palace and a bed strewn with rose petals, but... as much as I'm tempted, there's a part of my brain that still says it wouldn't be a good idea.

"Oh, you know what brains are like," Jayne scoffed.

"I do - but I'm not sure if you've had much experience with one," I shot back. "Anyway, bottom line, even if things were falling into place otherwise - tonight's not the right time. It just isn't."

"Hmm." Jayne seemed to consider his options. "Do you wanna meet up for breakfast in the galley? Not a big deal, just - I dunno, we could talk about whatever."

I sighed and tried to consider just what Jayne was sincere about, if anything. He was the kind of guy who probably had a lot that he wouldn't be comfortable saying - unless he wasn't even thinking of any of it. "Okay, sure, I'd enjoy the company I guess."

"See you at 0800?" I thought about that. Usually I was up a bit earlier by ship's time, but there wasn't much to worry about doing, so sleeping in again a bit would be nice.

"Sure."

I waved as I opened the hatch to my bunk, and Jayne waved his hand back, a bit bemused at the gesture on both our parts. Once again, I had a hard time getting myself to settle down to sleep, though it wasn't quite the same way as I'd felt the night before. All of those things I'd been feeling before about wanting a particular guy, a mister Right, to come aboard Serenity, were running through my head. Jayne wasn't anything like what I'd been expecting, and really, even once I adjusted my preconceptions, it seemed quite unlikely that he'd ever be that forever kind of man, or even one who'd want to stick with me long. But still... nobody was quite who they seemed on the surface. Was it even possible?

TO BE CONTINUED...


	7. Chapter 7

Weeks Eight and Nine

"There it is, right off in the... incredible distance," Wash admitted, pointing forward through Serenity's cockpit windows. "You should just be able to make it out as a little marble."

"Yeah," Jayne agreed - he had seen this before, after all, and presumably knew what to look for. "Lots of different colors - green and grey, and blueish and brown."

"Right - I think I can just make it out," I said, "In the side of that cluster of stars that kind of looks like a big pointed hat."

"That's the one," Wash agreed. "Persephone. Three hours to go before I have to make a final approach."

"I can't wait to get there," I admitted, and Jayne shot me a look with his eyebrows raised. Jayne and I had spent a fair bit of time together this trip, and though he'd never gotten me alone in his bunk like he obviously wanted, (or gotten into *my* bunk,) we'd had one playful kissing session in the break room when no-one else was up and awake, and my resistance to his macho charms was definitely slipping. Even though Jayne was obviously a 'bad boy' type... well, there was an appeal to that, as well as nicer guys like Jonny and lazy slackers of Bester's stripe. I'd been with more than one back on Three Hills, though possibly never one quite as bad for me as Jayne Cobb.

"Hmm -- are we on our course vector right?" Jayne said, looking from the window to the display on Wash's console.

Wash peered at it. "I suppose there's a good chance we'll need to make a course correction in -- oh, in the next fifteen minutes or so." His fingers danced over the keyboard, pulling up sensor readings and projections and whatever else was required. "Yeah. Just a tiny little burn, but might as well take it now..." He hovered his finger over a little red button, then pressed it for about half a second and then released again.

Before he'd even taken it off, though, we could feel the boom and rumble travelling through the ship, and I knew immediately that something had gone wrong.

"What... that's not a good sound, is it?" Jayne asked. I ignored him, locked eyes with Wash, and he was as stricken as I was.

"Which jet was that?" I asked.

"Umm - C7, on our port side. Was that one of the ones that you've adjusted since we left Dyton Colony??"

"Actually yeah, but I..." I trailed off, and then left the cockpit, putting on speed as much as I could. The only thing that I was sure of was that staying in there and talking with Wash wasn't going to accomplish anything. I had to actually look at that jet, or the part of it that I could look at without going outside wearing a suit, to start with.

So I looked. Wash was calling for Mal and Zoe, not that they'd have missed the fact that something was wrong, and I just frowned, trying to figure out what to do that would be productive. Nothing seemed to be amiss from here. As Zoe headed over, I decided to do a simulation test on the burn, for which... "I need my toolbox," I blurted out to her.

"I can fetch that." Zoe answered simply. "That is, unless there's something more important you need me for."

Something I needed her for? At that moment, something big started to dimly occur to me. Mal and Zoe knew that this could be a life-and-death crisis, though at this moment it might just as easily not be. And - and they were at my disposal, because I was the expert. Mal and Wash, even Zoe - they might have ideas of their own for what would help, what they'd try if I weren't here - but they *wouldn't* as long as I seemed to be in charge of the situation.

"Do it," I said, and hit the intercom. "Wash, you still behind the wheel?"

"There's no wheel, Kaylee," he said with a trace of a laugh. "But yeah, whatever you want, I'm here."

"Right now I want you to do nothing," I insisted. Probably that was already what he had in mind, but still, it didn't hurt to give the order. Would help reinforce the in-charge-ness of me. "I may ask you to try something in a bit, but not yet. Just keep us drifting exactly as we are."

"Understood," Wash said. I looked up and saw Mal.

"Well?"

"Just wondering how long you..."

"There's no way I can tell yet," I said. "Understand the orbital mechanics of our situation." If we were still dead in space in three hours or so, we might crash-land on Persephone, or fly into some other ship, or get diverted by an Alliance patrol so that we DIDN'T fly into anybody, (and how gentle would they be?) "If you've got some time on your hands, you could head down to the suits and -- we never did get one tailored to fit me just right, now did we? I think that I'd have remembered that."

"No, gorram it, there was one thing and another..." Mal sighed. "Do you think that you'll need to go outside?"

"I can't tell yet," I said. "Just want to be prepared."

"Ahh, alright. Well, I'll check and prep that petite little suit that you tried on back when I was giving you the grand tour."

"Thanks," I said. Already Zoe was coming back with my toolbox. All of this was on the little catwalk extender in the cargo bay. Mal hurried off, and traded a worried look with Zoe on his way.

The thruster that had caused the trouble tested very badly when I hooked it up. So did the other jets on the same row that I tried. So - either the original issue was systemic, or the trouble had spread with the one misfire.

Come on, come on, think! There were a few things that might have this sort of result - how did I figure out the true difficulty and devise a repair plan? I stymied for a second before remembering something that my brother Adan had told me once about troubleshooting a difficult engine. 'If you don't have enough information, try a test that will tell you something - ideally, that will serve to either confirm or deny at least one possible explanation.'

"Wash?" I said to the intercom, which I hadn't quite managed to reach. Growl and grumble. Stepped closer, turned it on, and repeated his name.

"Yeah?"

"Flood coolant into C9 for me, okay?"

"What good is that going to do?"

I counted to four silently. "None at first, but it'll tell me if the fuse wires are burnt through or not. Just do it, okay?"

----------

Over the next hour, a few answers started to emerge, but not hardly enough of them. The systemic issue was not in the ship's electrical system, or at least, not more than slightly. It was affecting all of the jets on this side of Serenity except the three bow ones, but not any of the larger drives. Still, there was almost no way that we could make a good landing without using the affected jets - and if Wash TRIED that, straining the big port-side engine or the shuttle burners by making them perform in a way that they weren't meant to, that might start other troubles if we hadn't figured out the true source of the issue.

"The propellant flow!" I exclaimed suddenly, seeing it. "All of those jets get refuelled along the same pipes. Not something in the propellant tank, but - in the port side pipe. There are three main pipes that lead out of the tank - port, starboard, and bow. IT FITS."

"Maybe," Mal admitted, smiling slightly. "So what's wrong with the pipe?"

"Let's go have a look," I suggested. The propellant tank was reachable from the main catwalk that went down the middle of the cargo bay, but most of the length of the pipe was a lot trickier to get to. After talking quickly about a few ways of rearranging the extenders or rigging harnesses, Mal called Wash and Zoe, had them arrange to turn the internal gravity down to just around ten percent, and then we were able to climb out across the 'ceiling', easily holding on to a group of rungs like a ladder that was pointed the wrong way.

There was nothing wrong with the pipe as seen from outside, but we managed, (oh, after a lot of doing,) to get it pumped out from both ends, then sealing off a section and taking it out for a look. Some propellant dribbled out and very slowly fell towards the bay floor - there was no way around that, but after that I stuck a pipe cleaner into it and it came out covered in this unusual kind of goop. "We don't have time or facilities to do a full analysis on that stuff," Mal pointed out. "Can we just replace this length with fresh pipe and try the jets again?"

"Hmm." I considered. "We'd have to flush all of the jets and refill them... and make sure that the taint hasn't gotten into the tank."

"We can check the pipe closest to the tank on the port side," Mal suggested.

"Yeah, that's worth a try," I said. "We'll have to pull it anyway." I looked at the pipe I was holding before letting it drop down too. "I just wish we could figure out what the contaminant source was. This was perfectly ordinary inert ceramic; there's no way it could have reacted with just about anything, especially the propellant that's designed to come down the pipe. And there's really no way for something else to get into it - if the propellant itself was impure when we last stocked up, all three pipes should be affected more or less equally..."

"More," Mal said meaningfully, pointing at the port pipe, "or less..." that was with a gesture at the starboard and forward pipes. "Maybe we just haven't noticed anything yet?"

"Oh boy," I muttered. "If we're going to test sections from all three pipes, plus the tank - we'll need all five crew working on it."

"Well, if the pipe section closest to the tank on the port side is free, then... yeah, I get your point. We need to be safe," Mal said, then started handing himself over to the main catwalk.

Another half an hour or so. The contaminated pipes had been cleared out of the port side - and the levels of gunk build-up seemed to be consistent with it spreading from a point fairly far out to the port. Starboard side, forward, and the tank itself were so clean that there was no point in replacing anything there. I even tore out and examined as much as I could of the port side feeder system - similar build-up, but nowhere that seemed to be the source of the whatever-it-was. There was nothing special about the junctions on the distribution system - they were just t-intersections in the pipe 'roadway.'

Soon enough the rebuild job was finished, and Mal got on the intercom with Wash. "Alright, when I give you the cue," he instructed, "vent propellant from all the affected jets. You know which ones are connected to the port pipe, right?"

"Yeah, definitely," Wash replied from the cockpit. "And then..."

"And then, switch them back to online," Mal said. "It'll take a while for that many jets to pump full of propellant again, but..."

And that was when it occurred to me. "THE PUMPS!" I exclaimed. "That has to be it. One or more of the pump chambers is faulty, mixing in hydraulic fluid with the propellant. THAT'S where the source of the contamination is." Took a breath. "We can't use the pumps until after I've checked them, Mal."

Mal frowned, and looked at his wrist-chrono. "Time's a-tickin', Kaylee. How long will that take?" I hesitated. "And is it really necessary? Unless it was the one jet that misfired that's leaking, then it took a while for the contamination to build up. We *need* to start making adjustments soon. Worst comes to worst, we can replace all of these jets, and the tank, when we get to Eavesdown docks."

I hesitated, torn between the very real requirements of the schedule and the desire to take care of this problem as well as I possibly could. "Yeah, I'll check that jet first, and as I clear them, I'll call them out, so Wash can start using them one by one."

"Sounds good by me," Wash said - or at least, I think that's what he was saying. I was too far from the speaker to hear him really well. It was more sounding like 'Sa goo buh muh.' But Mal nodded agreement, and I got right to work.

It was actually the second jet aft from 'jet zero', (the one that had gone boom,) where I found a gaping hole in the pump mechanism. I was actually surprised that it hadn't misfired the last time Wash had used it, but instead had managed to back up pumping fluid enough for every other jet in the pipe system to get tainted. Of course, all the running around doing test runs on the jets had probably aggravated the situation - even running a test draws a little bit of propellant up into the jet.

"So, can we bring the whole lot on-line?" Mal asked once I'd found that jet. "Or do you need to look further and see if there was another jet that had the same unlikely thing happen to it?"

Again, caution and realism warred inside me. Maybe it would be better, in the absence of a pressing time limit, to check the rest of the array - but no, this failure was improbable enough, and the one bad pump could explain everything that I'd seen. Even if there was another flaw just developing, we'd learned enough to get to Persephone okay - if Wash started now. "Go ahead, the whole bunch except for this one, C3. I can't disable it myself, so he'll need to steer clear of it himself."

"Give the order then," Mal said, indicating my communicator wand with a vague wave. At least, I had to assume that was what he meant to wave at.

"Hey, Wash? Sorry for the delay. Go ahead and bring the rest of them up except for jet C3."

"Got it." After a second, I could feel the ship turning slightly. "We're handling A-ok."

"Yeah!!" The exclamation sounded a bit out of character for Zoe, but it was nice to hear her get excited about something.

There was quite a mood of celebration as we zoomed in toward the atmosphere. Mal opened a bottle of something powerfully strong, and proposed a toast to 'the new genius mechanic,' which I rather liked the sound of. But I probably had a bit too much of the liquor too quickly, because when Jayne started to lead me off towards my bunk, I didn't resist, and even followed along with a little bit of eagerness of my own.

In that moment, proceeding to satisfy our mutual passions seemed a perfectly natural direction in which to take the festivities. He flattered me with soft words about how impressive I'd been in action, getting things done and figuring out the right way to proceed. Lips and fingers went just about everywhere, our clothes went flying, (almost literally, on account of the grav still being rather low,) and Jayne started taking his time above the waist.

And then, right in between licks, he muttered, "How much do you think that Companion would charge for a menage with us?" and all of a sudden I felt stone sober.

"Inara?" I muttered, shaking not from pleasure, but a sense of betrayal. Maybe I shouldn't have expected any better from Jayne, but still... "A threesome with Inara??"

"Well, yeah," he agreed, still kissing and sucking my chest eagerly, not even noticing that my skin must have grown chill. "It's an experience that neither of us will ever forget, I guarantee you that. And I've got a fair bit of pay saved up, plus once Mal pays out the shares of this job..."

I suddenly recovered from my shock enough to shove Jayne firmly away from me. "GET OUT."

"What the?" Jayne looked confused, then angry. "You some kind of a ruttin' tease, girl? Literally?? Let me get all worked up and then toss me out in the cold? Well, you got another think coming-- AAHH!"

Not particularly liking the sound of that rant, I followed the advice that a big brother had once given me and come just close enough to pinch Jayne's ear - warningly. "No, that's not how it is," I said once I knew I had his attention. "I was just as eager for this as you, when it started. But... but I do have some kind of *ching-wa tsao* STANDARDS, and you've blown your chance. I wasn't setting you up for a test on purpose... but I guess that doesn't keep you from..." I couldn't finish that thought, and it didn't matter. "You're going to leave now, unless you want me to pinch an even tenderer part..."

"Misbegotten witch!!"

"I wouldn't have done such a thing if I didn't feel like I had to," I said regretfully. "Don't come back into my bunk. And I'll *never* come to you like this again, not in your place or any other."

"Oh come on now... couldn't we just..." Jayne's eyes dropped to settle on my bare chest again, and I quickly snatched up a sheet and held it in front of myself as a cover. That, apparently, was what gave him the hint that I was serious.

"No, we can't *just*," I felt I had to say as Jayne started up the ladder. "Don't forget your gorram CLOTHES!"

And with that, Jayne looked back at me and grinned. "Drop 'em off with me later." And he headed up into the forward hall in his birthday suit. I groaned and flopped back into my mattress, pounding it in frustration.

-----------

I could hear the sounds of shuttle one settling back into place, but it was a long time - enough minutes that I couldn't manage to keep count of them, anyway - before the hatch opened. Inara blinked as she noticed me curled up practically at her feet. "Well, I guess you'd better come inside," she said, with a half-smile on her face.

"Your client gone?" I checked.

"Yes, of course. That's what the shuttle and I were just up to, dropping him off." I nodded in agreement, and got up. "So, do you want to tell me what's troubling you, or will we just start with tea?"

"Tea sounds good," I admitted.

Over the second cup of tea, I told her about the Jayne thing - including what he'd said to set me off.

"Well, if you're curious," Inara said, and I felt curious enough to nod. "I have made couples appointments, and - probably will again. Not going to say what the going rate is. But - beyond the policy I chose not to work with the crew of the ship, which apparently no-one told Mister Cobb of - I'm always very careful in such a situation that it's something that both partners want, and not just a fantasy on one side that is resented or grudgingly tolerated on the other."

"Okay," I said. "That makes some sense. But - I don't know, I'm wondering if I over-reacted. It was an almighty dumb thing to say, but guys always end up saying something dumb. Especially in the middle of the warm-up act."

"Well, maybe it wasn't so much about that one thing, but that it made you confront a number of other concerns you had about Mister Cobb and what you yourself wanted, beyond a purely physical attraction," Inara suggested. "Whatever you were feeling in that moment, I suspect that it was valid. All feelings are valid, unless rooted in the desire to hurt someone."

"I... I did hurt Jayne's feelings," I admitted. "Bit hard to believe that he has any sometimes, but in that moment - he was terribly disappointed and - and felt rejected."

"And he hurt your feelings too, without even realizing it," Inara replied. "Which would tend to suggest that for the two of you to pursue even a superficial affair would be a painful experience on both sides. I just hope that you'll be able to escape those patterns with a less intense interaction, since you won't be able to work as part of the same crew and avoid any interaction."

"Yeah, that's a good point," I said. "So, what's up for you on Persephone? Anything you're looking forward to - that you can tell me?"

"Well, I have a session coming up with a repeat customer," Inara said. "Someone I knew from Sihnon, because he used to come up there for fencing lessons."

"What's his name?" I pressed, determined not to let Inara get away with such a tease. "What's he like?"

"Atherton Wing. Let's see... he's very dashing and has a handsome face. Bit of a nasty sense of humour sometimes, but always fun to spend an evening with..."

-----------

The next morning, I found Mal in the break room. "Listen, Cap'n, there's something that I've been meaning to mention to you ever since you recruited Jayne, and all... all that talk of percentages. Now, I realize that when I signed on myself, well, we didn't..."

"You didn't ask for much," Mal said with a smile. "Aside from the chance to fly with Serenity, and see some of the 'verse, and I think that I've delivered that."

"Yes, you have," I had to admit. "But - well, I guess it was terribly naive of me, not asking for - for something more, whether it was a lay or a flat wage, but..."

"A lay?" Mal repeated, raising his eyebrows.

"Not in the physical sense. Just - well, that's a term that they use back home for a cut or a percentage, you know? Working out the lay roster, taking a fifth lay, that sort of thing."

"Oh, all right," Mal agreed. "I've heard of that one, yes. So - it's true you didn't ask for anything monetary when you came on board, but you didn't sign an ironclad either. Now that your expectations have changed, I'd be wise to offer the best mechanic I've ever had something decent - so that she doesn't take off and leave me in the lurch." He offered his hand, with a twinkle in his eye, and led me towards the cargo bay. I wondered if he knew how unlikely it was that I'd *really* leave Serenity over a question of coin. "Plus, I do believe that a crew works best when the profit, if profit there is, spreads freely between all who are working for the good of the team."

I smiled, starting to like the sound of this. Trusting in what Mal believed was better than have him worrying about what he needed to do to keep me aboard. "Which I do."

"True. On the other hand - you keep us moving, but your primary job isn't what helps us bring in money. A mechanic is overhead, as opposed to Jayne and Zoe, who actually pitch in with guns blazing and lives on the line when the going gets tough."

"Or at least, you're counting on Jayne doing that. There hasn't really been an opportunity for him to prove it yet - if you don't count him turning on his old crew."

"Which I do tend to count, up to a point," Mal admitted. By now we were heading down the stairs into the cargo bay, and I realized that the loot from Dyton Colony, the silver, was already mostly loaded into the mule, but covered and camouflaged so that we could drive through the city without attracting attention. A few bricks worth either had been forgotten or had managed to fall out. "For my excellent mechanic - eight percent share?" It was clearly just the start of a haggle session.

"Hey," I insisted. "Of the pure profit, after expenses? I do more than just tend to the engines, remember - I shilled for passengers on Ezra, and I'll probably do it again." Mal grinned and nodded. "And I got you the computer codes you needed back on Paquin."

"And never did exactly explain how, I'm still noticing," Mal said.

Whoops. He'd never really mentioned the hole in my story; no one had, so I'd forgotten about it. And now - with Inara being on board, how would he react if I'd said that she'd been working against us on that escapade - and helping out the guy who had knifed him? Then again, Mal didn't tend to hold grudges of that score - but still, the story of how I'd really met Inara was something private and special, and I didn't want to share it now. "Nope I didn't. A girl needs to keep some secrets if she's going to maintain her bargaining position. Twelve percent, and not a grain less."

"Outrageous."

"Jayne's getting fifteen, and I think that Wash and Zoe get even more. What's YOUR share, Captain? And -- where are we going?" I handed Mal the last of the pieces of silver he'd been loading into the mule, and he was gesturing to the front right seat.

"To meet Niska's Persephone contact and make the delivery. I thought that you should be coming with me."

"Oh. Well... thanks, but don't think that'll soften me up much when we're talking hard coin."

"Of course not," Mal replied with a smile. The cargo bay door was already open, I noticed, and he took the control wheel and drove us carefully out into the chaos and noise of Eavesdown docks. "Now, we're not actually talking pure profit. My accounting system is a little odd, I admit, but there are allocations made for regular costs like fuelling the ship, and various other contingencies like a decent burial fund. Terms are subject to review, as well - Zoe, Wash, and I have all taken pay cuts for Jayne coming onto the team, and if we hire someone new, like that medic you're always telling me we need..."

"Yeah, I understand," I said, but wasn't too mollified. "Eleven and a half percent?"

"Ten percent."

----------

Persephone's been easily every bit as much of a whirlwind as Wash said it would be.

We got the silver dropped off and collected our promised pay - not just coin, but a nearly untraceable fund of Alliance credit, and a load of fuel, and a few other good things that are worth their weight in gold. We're all pretty flush from our shares of the profit that Mal handed out, living the better days and all. Wash and Zoe took off to have some alone time together, and Mal didn't really like that Zoe left him in the lurch, even though there isn't really that much to be doing. I heard him having a big row with Zoe while Wash and Jayne were off on some errand together - not quite sure what it was Mal was ordering Zoe to do, but she didn't seem inclined to follow his lead.

I also met Badger, who seems a bit funny but also kind of creepy. He seemed more amused than upset that Jayne had hopped from Marco's crew to ours, and said that as long as they were all working for him, it didn't make much difference to him. Then Mal said that they didn't work for him all the time, and that got them down to business over some fruit smuggling gig that it seems we're going to take, from Persephone to New Melbourne.

We're taking on passengers as well - looks live Eavesdown docks is always a good place to pick up a few strays who aren't sure where they need to go, just to get away. There's a young couple around Zoe and Wash's age, (wonder what they'll think when they get back for takeoff tomorrow,) and an older man with a Bolognese accent or whatever, and two middle-aged ladies who are always whispering to each other. Going to be an interesting trip.

Mal took me shopping for parts again. It's weird - he doesn't really object to laying down serious coin for impressive looking machine components that he can appreciate, but didn't want to spend two grains on a spare catalyzer for the compression coil. I admit, it's not much to look at, but it could save our lives one day. I was tempted to lay down my own hard-earned money, but gorram it, this is his ship and it's his place. I've got to teach him that - if I start spending my own money for spares, then soon enough I'm going to be footing the whole cost of keeping her in good repair.

And he also took me to finally get my own tailored space-suit, which was a bit of a weird experience. Not only was there the usual measuring that I sort of expected -- well, I knew what to expect there from the one time that I got an outfit custom-tailored, back home when Melany invited me to a big society dance. But I also had to complete all sorts of routine tasks, while the tailor just watched me and occasionally asked me to freeze while he took readings with a device I don't exactly understand, more complicated than a measuring tape. And then strapping on a foam outfit that didn't have much resemblance to a spacesuit that I could tell, except maybe for a bit of the overall shape, and going through all the routine again. Not that the tailor said much to me directly - he only spoke Cantonese, and I didn't know much except for the usual schoolyard talk, so Mal translated.

The suit is a beauty, though - I'm going to take extra-special care of it, and can hardly wait to see when I first need to actually wear it. Guess that the little guy knows what he's about. Oh, yeah, he was really short, maybe one and a half meters, or even a little less.

So, what else can I talk about... Jayne? Yeah, we still pretty much avoid each other, and don't talk too much even when there's some job that we both have to work on at the same time together. I'm not sure if he was really sweeter on me than he let on, or if it's just a male ego thing and disappointed expectations from what he thought would be a good roll in the hay. Whatever the reason, I still stand by what I said to him - we'd never have been good for each other anyway, and probably I'm better off for never having gone through with it. Once his sour mood thaws out, I could see us becoming friends, or even like a brother and sister that never were. (Not that I don't have enough big brothers back home, but none quite like him.)

Maybe I should start trying to thaw him out now, come to think of it, instead of keeping my own side of the cold shoulder up any longer. While still making clear that things have to be plutonic now, of course. Nobody in the 'Verse can resist my cheerfulness; after all, that's what Mal says.

And speaking of friends that I'm feeling like a sister to, I've been spending more time with Inara - when her busy schedule permits, that is. Atherton wasn't the only upper class guy who wanted a piece of her time while she was on Persephone, it seems. Come to think of it, the gang is starting to feel more and more like family - with Zoe as a distant, icy, but sweet Aunt or something, and Wash as the crazy uncle always ready with a joke or a silly thing to say.

------------

"I thought that you'd like circulating with that lot," Inara said, stepping up to the engine room door. I was in my hammock again, trying to think up something to say to the Cortex. "Interesting group of passengers this time."

"Yeah, well, they'd have to be - nobody dull wants to go to a fishy place like New Melbourne," I put in. "Wonder why Badger's buyer wants all of this fresh fruit so bad."

"Oh, is *that* the cargo that Mal is being so secretive about?" Inara smiled. "Maybe it's really good as fish bait."

"Fish bait??" I repeated, surprised.

"Yeah... you cut open a fruit into tiny slices, and -- and put one of them on the fish-hook." She sighed and leaned against the wall. "Or so I seem to remember from camping trips when I was little, back on Sihnon."

"Oh, with your family?" I asked.

"No - I don't really remember them much," she admitted. "This was when I had just become a Companion Novice, in training. They'd let us leave the city in the first flush of springtime, and spend a few weeks out at a chalet in the protected wilder lands."

"Okay," I nodded acceptance of that and decided not to try pressing Inara too hard for further details on her background, since this was usually about the point where she'd clam up if I tried. But still I wondered about the 'didn't remember her parents' part. "On Three Hills, we generally used worms or other little live critters. I remember sneaking away with boys to go fishing when I was still in the town school."

"To each world, its own ways," Inara admitted. "I realize that most of the fishing on New Melbourne is with big net operations and full-size fishing boats, not likely to involve bait for individual lines, like hobby fishing. And those fishing trips of yours with boys - did the hook always hit the water?"

"Hmm -- I guess not," I admitted. "Anyway, getting back to your original comment about our passengers, I'll come down and mingle in a bit if you think I should. But... I just got a cortex message from Jonny, and I was trying to think of something to say in a video wave back."

"I'm sure he'll love to hear from you, no matter what you say," she reassured me.

"And if I can't think of anything at all?" I said.

"Maybe you could think of something to show him instead." I blinked. "Only if you wanted to, of course."

"Well anyway," I said, trying to move the topic on again. "You don't have a passenger-client this time, and it's a long flight to New Melbourne. Is this just dead time for you? Do you have any prospects lined up when we get there?"

"Yes, more or less, and no, not yet," she said. "I've put out a few feelers for New Melbourne, but no bites yet - as it were." I laughed a bit too loud at the corny fishing joke. "For this trip - Mister Krauss made a proposition, but I don't think I'm that interested. And I was trying to arrange for someone to meet us along the way, but apparently intercepts like that are harder to handle than I thought. Also, Mal wasn't happy about the idea of my broadcasting our full course over the Cortex, just in case."

"He might have a point," I put in. "So what, then? Aside from mingling and talking with me?"

"I have a lot of background information on the Rim worlds that I still want to study in greater detail," she said. "Well, before you lose your empty train of thought, I'll go and leave you to Jonny."

"Well, thanks," I muttered, and managed a little wave as she left.

---------------

I could feel it, even in the middle of the night, when the engine started to slow down. I was out of my bunk, at the top of the ladder in only a few seconds, (still in my sleep clothes, but those are a fairly ordinary set of shirt and shorts, well anyway...) and pelted to the engine room at top speed.

"What's going on?" Zoe asked, approaching from the direction of the rear stairs.

"I... I'm not sure," I admitted, uncertain. After looking around for a few seconds, I hit the intercom. "Wash, you at the controls?"

"No, I think that he's down for the night," Zoe put in, a worried tone in her voice. "Why??"

"Go to the cockpit yourself," I said. "See if one of the passengers messed with something they shouldn't have. I'm looking for any reason that the rotor speed would be deliberately cranked down." Even as I said it, I was starting to become sure that this wasn't because of anything that was happening in Serenity's forward control room, especially because the big motor was STILL slowing down, and would probably be stopped in half a minute at this rate. Nobody would keep doing that deliberately, would they?

Nobody had, we quickly determined. All of the male crew rousted themselves out of beds in response to the relatively quiet ruckus that Zoe and I made, and Mal was the first to show up at the door of my domain. "What's the situation?"

"Looks like the dynamo arc has... has just disintegrated," I muttered, disbelieving it. "I'm taking out pieces here... we're in deep trouble if I can't manage to weld up something that will do well enough from that scrap nickel in the corner of the cargo bay."

"But - but you'll be able to, right?" Mal said, paling a little. "And --"

"I'm not saying that I can - it's never something I've even thought about," I snapped. "It's a chance for us to stay flying, that's about all. Otherwise - well, I know that you wouldn't be wild about putting out a distress call, especially with folks tending to ask for high rescue fees, but..." Something suddenly twigged. "Zoe - you were very near the engine room."

"Yeah, I was," she said, poking her head back inside. I'd just been about to turn the intercom on, remembering that she'd be waiting up near the cockpit, but I guess that she wasn't. That actually fit into my suspicions.

"You weren't inside a moment before everything started to go wrong, like messing with anything?"

"Kaylee!" Mal exclaimed. "How could you even suggest such a thing?"

"She wouldn't be a good mechanic or a brilliant trouble-shooter if she didn't suspect that something strange was up," Zoe said evenly. "Because I did. Call it something of a dry run - just to make sure that she was on the ball, and - to impress upon you just how serious the need for routine and cheap spare parts can be when we spend so much time in the deep black."

"Okay, okay, all right," Mal muttered. "Now - did you actually break this dynamo arc, or just hide it and replace it with a bunch of pieces?"

"I've been saving the old one that Bester took out three months ago and pouring a little acid on it now and then," Zoe said with relish. "The good one's actually hidden in the cubby-hole in the corner of the room, Kaylee - didn't want to risk getting caught carrying it out."

Finally I found the hidey-hole that she mentioned and pulled the arc back out. "Okay, test is over, and I hope that I passed decently," I muttered. "Now get out of here so that I can start re-installing this thing properly."

Mal shot Zoe a 'so there' look as they left, to which Zoe replied with a pleased shrug.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	8. Chapter 8

Conclusion: Week Twelve

Okay, I've been too busy to journal much, because the daring heroics that we've been up to lately since Jayne joined the crew are... well, I'm not going to go into all of the details because I don't have enough time for THAT right now. But - we just landed on Beaumonde a few hours ago, and the day after tomorrow is Zoe and Wash's wedding day. Things are all being arranged rather last-minute, but still I'm excited.

Zoe picked me to be her 'peeress of honor,' mostly because she didn't really have anyone else that she felt at all comfortable with asking, One of Wash's cousins is also a peeress, and a woman who Mal and Zoe both served with in the war and made it out alive was supposed to round out her side of the wedding company, but we just found out this morning that she was bound by Alliance law on the other side of the planet, so Inara volunteered to fill in. Mal made some cracks about if she'd be charging Zoe for her time, but Zoe accepted fairly gratefully.

There are so many details to take care of, but I'm loving it. There's organizing the bride's "last blast party", and keeping track of the guests, not that this is a big shindig, but still... rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, and everything. The wedding is going to be outside, on a pleasant meadow overlooking a stream, with trees dotted here and there. We're going to be hanging cheap colored beads over the tree branches, and everybody will need to wear repellant cream, because there are bloodsucking bugs who sometimes swarm at this time of year if they catch the scent of people in large groups.

Zoe's father DID make it, or at least we've had word that his ship is in orbit and should clear Beaumonde customs inspection soon. Wash's family is here - we've already met up with them; in fact, he parked the ship on a corner of the country house's backyard. I've already mentioned that his cousin is a peeress, and his brother is the Best Peer. Mal's one of Wash's Peers too, though I don't think Wash is happy about that. Zoe probably insisted that Mal had to be part of the proceedings - and a guy who Wash went through flight school with and worked on an express courier service with - the two of them trading off piloting the same ship I guess, because the routes were so tough that somebody had to be at the controls all of the time - deep slots crossing the Verse by passing close to the sun, that kind of thing.

There's a lot of the wedding traditions that they're going by that I don't really understand - about why there have to be three attendants on each side, and why the schedule is so fixed, and that kind of thing. Weddings back home were sometimes big affairs, but not usually as well planned as this - just big parties where the whole town pretty much gathered to celebrate the new couple hooking up. Well, it's Zoe's big day, and I'm doing my best to just get everything organized the way that she wants it.

Which reminds me, I've got to go and talk to a guy about decorative fruit to put on the back of the chairs for the reception. (Fruit again, sheesh and all that!)

-------------

Man, what a bash. When a girl like Zoe decides to enjoy the prerogatives of single life one more time before she takes herself off the market, she doesn't mess around.

Things started fairly simply - myself, Zoe, Inara, Wash's cousin Nancy, and two other girls who've been invited to the ceremony. (An old friend of Wash's, and somebody that Zoe knows from a job that she did with Mal from before I joined up.) We went to this dark nightclub in the city - there was food - really good stir-fry and shish kebab, and some drinks. I did try to avoid getting too hammered myself, switching to virgin cocktails after my third highball.

There were male dancers that came out a little while after that - REALLY hot guys, too. If there was an explanation of exactly what the usual rules were for the 'private sessions' with them, then I missed that. Tried one myself, and there was a lot of touching both ways, no kissing on the lips, but... well, it was enough to get me excited but not close the deal, which I just found frustrating. Went back to the table, started talking with Nancy, who wasn't seeming that interested in the guys or the booze herself, and we started playing an invented game involving trying to flip silverware into the punch bowl in the center of the table.

Long after midnight, local time, I finally decided that it was my job as Peeress of Honor to get the bride-to-be back home and resting. (Wash was going to be sleeping in his folks' house from now until after the ceremony - one of those goofy traditions again.) So I was able to round up everyone except her pretty quickly - one of the dancers said that she was in the middle of getting a special wedding present from his friend, and I should just wait a while. Feeling impatient, I made him tell me where they were, and he pointed out a small door, almost hidden against the wall.

The door was locked, but I was pissed now, for no really good reason, and had picked up a few tricks over the past few months. The lock wasn't great quality, and I could lever the spring bolt back by slipping my visitor's visa card in between the door and the frame and jiggling it around a little. Went in and - saw much more of Zoe than I'd ever expected to. And the dancer 'friend', one of the cutest, with toned muscles and skin even darker than Zoe's own, was also bare naked and had his shaved head down in between Zoe's legs.

"Oh," I muttered. "Maybe I really should leave you to this. But we're ready to leave whenever... you've come." Oh, blabber factor at least twenty-nine on a scale of one to ten.

Buddy lifted up his head, and without wanting to I could see that between Zoe's legs was also shaved quite free of hair. "Are you sure that you want to," he asked, in between sucking on his own lips.

"Make it quick, baby," Zoe purred, sounding nearly lost in contentment. "Kaylee - umm, I'm sorry you had to see this, but - didn't we lock the door."

"I'm too clever for my own good," I said, and went back out, hoping that the door would lock again of its own accord, but I wasn't about to fiddle with it at that moment.

Zoe emerged less than five minutes later, looking perfectly composed and serene except for a look on her face that I wondered if I was reading too much into. And we all went back to the long and richly furnished rented ground-car, to drop everyone else off, including Nancy at the Washburn's country house. Finally, Zoe and I went up into Serenity and took to our own bunks, not saying anything.

------------

What I'd seen kept bugging me all through the next day and through the wedding rehearsal. (There were indeed a lot of bugs about, but they didn't seem to pay us any attention, and even gave everybody about ten feet of space or so, which I guess was the repellent cream working.) The rehearsal dinner was held at the Washburn's house, and it was a great, homey get-together - pot roast that was really meat, and all kinds of trimmings, and home-baked cake and biscuits for dessert.

During the computer puzzle games that nearly everybody present were playing in the living room, Wash took my arm gently and whispered in my ear. "Do you want to talk about something?"

I hesitated, then decided to take the chance, and nodded. He led me off to a room that was possibly a private den, or his father's study. "You've been acting a bit twitchy all day, and Zoe thinks that it might have had something to do with... her last bash as a single woman last night?"

"Umm, yeah, actually," I said. "Has she... said anything about, well..."

"Exactly what she did, like breaking a lot of the rules with one of the entertainment dancers?" Wash said, and nodded. "She asked me about it before you left - in fact, we talked about it quite a few times. I - well, obviously I wasn't wild about the idea at first. I mean, who would be? But... but she's a passionate woman, not possibly one of the best people in the 'Verse temperamentally suited to monogamy, and she's been faithful to me ever since we first... came together, like that. She wanted one chance to blow of steam and - and be with another man, before our wedding day, and only if I didn't have issues after thinking about it. And she offered me the chance to do the same thing too, at the bachelor party or in some other circumstance if I wanted to."

I blinked. "Did... did you take her up on that? Sorry if that's too weird to ask, but - but I'm curious."

"Well, I didn't go as far as she did... I did look up an old flame and had lunch, kissed her and -- well, it was a good way to get a bit of closure I guess. Not that I really needed to do anything like that, but I wanted to make an effort so that Zoe wouldn't feel what she'd done was one-sided."

I had to ask the big question. "You're not even a bit worried about what this means for your future with Zoe? I mean - she says that this is just something she wanted to get out of her system before the big day. What if it's still hanging around, seven years on or who knows when?"

Wash just shrugged and smiled. "I... I can't guarantee that she won't feel that temptation, or that she'll always be strong enough to bear it without wavering, ever faithful in her flesh. But... but I do believe that she'll tell me if that day comes, like she came to me this time, and that we'll find some way of dealing with it in honesty and love. Maybe I'll give her permission to indulge outside the marriage bed, as long as I know about it - if that seems like the best way of staying together. I don't know how she'd feel about an arrangement like that herself... and I should probably ask before tomorrow."

"You could really picture yourself doing that?" Most married men I knew from back home always seemed to be so jealous and possessive about their wives, and usually a bit paranoid about being cuckolded.

"Not wanting to *picture* it, I admit," he said, and I laughed. "But I trust that I can do it if that's what it takes."

I smiled slightly. "Hope that Zoe realizes what an incredible guy she's got."

"Well, I think so... but it would be a bit arrogant for me to say so to her." He chuckled softly. "Feel free to put in a reminder on my behalf if you like. Want to get back in the game?"

"Sure," I told him with a big smile. "Lead the way."

"You haven't got lost, have you Kaylee?"

"No, come on - right when we come out of here, to the end of the hallway and then left. It was just an expression." And when he didn't move for a moment, *I* opened the door and led the way.

-------------

"I dunno," I said, as I sat on the bed in the honeymoon suite, watching Zoe applying invisible makeup very carefully. "Brett Wash is a nice guy, but he's married his own self, and -- and I just wish I had my own date to the wedding and the reception. Poor guy might feel a little bit left out at the parts where I need to play the part of the Peeress of honor, but still... I want a guy to dance with, to put his arm around me at the table, and --"

"Yeah, I know Kaylee," Zoe said, with about as much sympathy as she could manage. It wasn't as much as she'd mustered last time, so I realized that I was probably getting pretty tiring with the refrain. Oh, if it surprises you that Zoe was getting ready in the honeymoon suite - well, it startled me a little bit, and it isn't a Beaumonde wedding tradition either. Just - Wash's aunt pointed out that Serenity doesn't really have the right facilities for this sort of preparations, and started making calls to find another space for us. When she tried the Sky Climber hotel, they mentioned that the honeymoon suite wasn't in use at this point, and of course, it was already reserved for Zoe and Wash later, so an arrangement was fairly quickly made.

"Okay, okay, I'll change the subject," I said. "Do you have your personal testament all written yet?"

"Umm, no - at least, I have an idea what I'll say, but not all of the details," Zoe admitted. "Having a bit of a hard time with putting it into words - how much I feel for Wash and why, what marriage means to me and the promises that I intend to make."

"You'll figure it all out when the time is right, Zoe," Inara said reassuringly. "I know that the clock is ticking, but that doesn't matter. Just don't stress about it."

Zoe turned a perfectly blank look on Inara, keeping it up for long enough that even Inara was starting to squirm, and I couldn't keep from chuckling softly. (I was careful to keep it quiet so that Zoe didn't get pissed at ME.) Just when the tension was getting to be too much, Zoe said in a perfectly calm, deadpan tone - "What, me - worry? Do I look like I'm... worrying?"

For a few seconds none of us even moved. And then I realized that Zoe was joking, had to be kidding around with us because not even she could be quite so dry and serious. When I broke out laughing, Inara followed, nervously, and Nancy joined in. Even Zoe cracked a smile.

"Okay, umm - I have a question, if that's okay," Nancy said timidly. "The two of you - Kaylee, Inara - you're not married, are you? Haven't ever been?"

"No, I haven't hardly had time," I said, though that wasn't exactly the whole truth. Friends of mine my own age back home were already a few years married with kids in a few cases - but I wouldn't have wanted to rush that much.

"Nor I," Inara agreed. "Taking a husband in my line of work would be... unusual, though hardly unheard of. I've had one offer already to - settle down, but ended up refusing it."

"Oh." I wondered if Nancy would ask about Inara's line of work. She obviously wanted to - I hadn't realized that she didn't know that Inara was a Companion - but appeared to lose her nerve.

"And I haven't, before, either," Zoe volunteered.

"Yeah, I did kind of - get that impression," Nancy told her. "And thanks. Do you think you ever will get married, Kaylee? Would you want to?"

"Actually, I've been thinking about that, a lot lately," I admitted. "Because of Zoe and Wash. If - if I find the right guy, someone who I love that much and loves me back and if we can get all of the usual drama sorted out - I'd definitely want to get hitched. Maybe not as quickly as Zoe did, but... well, it takes a thousand different courses to fly the 'Verse."

"And what about you, Nancy?" Inara asked.

"Oh - I'm already sort of pre-engaged," she said. "Drew couldn't make it today - he's off in South Fricalee on an important job assignment, but - well, if he'd been able to make it, we'd have formally announced our engagement at the reception."

"Hey!" Zoe snapped. "Bride here! MY big day - you don't try to steal MY thunder on my big day!!"

Nancy quailed. "We... we'd have asked Wash and yourself before going through with it - if it'd been a real option. I... I didn't think it was a big deal. That's sort of how these things tend to go in our clan... and you're playing a joke on me now, aren't you?"

Zoe's grin escaped. "Yes, yes I think that I was. Congratulations, whenever you manage to announce - even if it's an unlikely moment, which I certainly know about."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Well, much as I hate to say it, we're running a bit low on time to be indulging in such idle chatter. Zoe, are you done with your face? It looks pretty good to me."

"Um - uh, yeah, I think - wait." She dabbed something on her cheek. "Yeah, okay."

"Now it's hair time," Inara said, getting up. "Come on, let Miss Serra get to work - I promise that you won't regret choosing me."

-----------

Everyone turned around as the music changed, and Zoe began her procession up the aisle, breathtaking and wondrous in her red print wedding dress. In the end, she'd decided to break with certain traditions as far as not having anyone 'give her away' and walk her up to the altar with her on his arm - not her father, and not Mal. I thought that made sense - it's one thing for a girl who is still dependent on her childhood family, in one way or another, at the time of her wedding, but that was not something that described Zoe at all. Wash and the rest of us were already her family, and she wouldn't be leaving us...

Wash looked very handsome in his white and pale-yellow suit, I thought. I was stuck in a pale purple dress that looked pretty hideous - but then, that's the point of Peeress costumes, isn't it - to make the bride shine in comparison?

I tuned out most of the ceremony, though of course I still remember impressions. The attending Shepherd was a middle-aged man with a slightly humped back, but a kind and sweet smile, and when he made all of the usual speeches you could tell how much he believed that some God way out there in the black really loved us all, Zoe and Wash especially today, and wanted the best for them all of their lives. The only member of the crew who hadn't been tapped for the wedding party was Jayne, and he was sitting up front with a very sincere smile.

Wash made his witness first, and spoke on about the suddenness with which his love for Zoe had grown, how he was determined to do his best to protect her, and learn to let her protect him when that seemed like it would work better. Zoe took her turn, and talked about how she hadn't expected to really find love when she decided to actually get to know this pilot guy better and spend more time with him, how with all of the billions of people in the 'verse it was so rare to find one who so perfectly complemented your own in every way, and promised to love him always, to follow their star together no matter where it led them, to always respect him and never grow in anger. The Shepherd gave his final blessing and proclaimed them legally man and wife in the eyes of God, according to the laws of Beaumonde and the full span of the Allied 'Verse.

We took ground-cars from the wedding site to the community hall, which was hosting the reception, and I nearly fell over when I spotted a familiar face standing outside the front doors and waiting for us. "Hey, I just got here a few minutes ago, darling," he told me. "Something tells me that you might need a dance partner."

"Jonny Winfield?" I breathed. "But - but how did you get - what are you doing here? Beaumonde must be eight..."

"Never mind that," he said, sweeping me into his arms. "We may only have one night to be together again, so why spoil it with more questions."

"Alright," I said. "I have to give a toast for Zoe, and dance one traditional dance with Wash's brother. Aside from that, I'm all yours."

-----------

When Jonny dropped me off at the edge of the Washburn's backyard, the sun was already coming up. We'd said our goodbyes, so I took one more kiss and hurried aboard before I could break down into tears.

Mal was waiting in the cargo bay. "How long do you think I should give them, on account of this being the wedding night?" he asked me conversationally. "Or at least, it was the wedding night, before it became the morning after."

"At least until local noon, or else you're an unfeeling monster," I said. "Why are you so much in a hurry to be off, anyway?"

"Well, we got a wave last night, while everyone was off at the ceremony," he said. "Badger. He's got a salvage job in a blown carrier for us. And while we're on Persephone, I want you to find us some more passengers, for a trip to Boros."

"Okay, all right," I said, too tired to argue. "Who do you figure we'll find?"

"Oh, probably nobody very interesting," he replied offhandedly, turning and walking away.

THE END!


End file.
